


Stitching Up The Circuitboard

by CharismaticEnticer



Series: Mortem Ex Machina (Dark!Verse) [2]
Category: Die Anstalt
Genre: Autism, Canon Autistic Character, Canonical Character Death, Conspiracy, Death, Don't forget, Drowning, Gen, German Sign Language, Gore, Grief/Mourning, Interlude, Ironic Deaths, Memories, Mental Disintegration, Mental Institutions, Mortality, Murder, Murder Mystery, Muteness, Nightmares, POV Multiple, POV Second Person, POV Third Person Limited, POV switch, Past Tense, Plot Twists, Present Tense, Sad, Sign Language, Spoilers, Stuffed Toys, Synesthesia, Triggers, a hint of social anxiety, haha - Freeform, manslaughter, or as gory as cuddly toys can get, stuff and fluff as it were, the process of grieving
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharismaticEnticer/pseuds/CharismaticEnticer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One loss in a place like this is a tragedy, particularly considering this is the first. Two is a coincidence. You know how the saying goes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Can't Choose What Stays

**Author's Note:**

> As with Voodoo Doll, this entire fanfiction has a severe warning stamp. **This means that the content can be triggering to the point of an adverse physical and emotional reaction, up to and including panic attacks and neck sensitivity.** In this instance, the warning is for: the aftermaths and musings on pre-existing major character death and mortality by extension; survivor's guilt; additional character death by potentially murder; and the cuddly toy equivalent of gore. Further such warnings will be added here the further into the fic we get. Read at your own risk. 
> 
> The moral right of this author has been asserted.
> 
> \---
> 
> This is going to be a difficult fic. 
> 
> I don't mean like in the technical writing sense, though probably in that regard too. I have not had the best track record with multi-chaptered stuff. But what I mean is, this is going to be difficult in the emotional resonance sense. Having never experienced death of anyone close to me in my life before, and only knowing of such grief through friends, and friends of friends thereof, I might be ill-equipped to write stuff dealing with such a singular thing as that. 
> 
> But that didn't stop me with The Aim of All Life is Death itself, did it? So goddamnit, I'm going to try and put as much genuine emotion into this as I can. And hopefully, that will make it a potent read without triggering anybody unnecessarily. 
> 
> I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
> 
> Die Anstalt © Martin Kittsteiner.

Hard as it is to believe sometimes, the world at large is unaffected by tragedies, even on this level. It just follows the rules of reality noted in seventh year physics and keeps on turning in its usual fashion.

It shouldn't in this instance. It should have stopped cold, as you seem to have done, drifting from one state of affairs to the other, blithely observing things around you so as to try and fail to think about something else. Even the necessary and comforting routines, like getting your puzzle as close to complete as you can, should have stilled with it, you believe. (Dr Wood would probably call this "lack of theory of mind" were he in a better mood.)

But turn it does.

This is why Dr Spieler knocks on the door and peeks in to wake you up at the usual time this morning, despite knowing full well that neither of you have been able to sleep since the event. "[Good morni- oh. Lilo, you're up already,]" she intones.  
From the edges of your bedcovers, you stare back at her with groggy eyes, and without retort. You can't really blame her for stating the obvious. It'd be far worse if you weren't.

"[I'm - I think I'm supposed to have you third today, so that's gonna be about twelve. So if you could, um, get up and join the others once I get them together, and then we can...]" She pauses, fingers absently twisting her hair, presumably looking for a way to end the sentence. Then, changing it altogether, "[Oh, Kroko's pretty upset this morning. I think all this is getting to him. So, I know you wouldn't normally, but I've been asked to tell _everyone_ , so. Try not to set him off today. ...Sorry.]"

As she awkwardly leaves and heads for the next toy, you slide your weighted feet and heaving bulk onto the floor, making sure to shift the sheets back into alignment when you do. Again, part of the routine that persists. Waking up, changing rooms, being talked to on a bed-couch hybrid, attempting once more to piece everything together... just doing **something** that proves that you are moving and animate and "getting better", no matter how gradually. All of you have to do it. You've had to for the past, what, year now, or two? Is that how long it has been since she dropped you off and disappeared?  
To the outsider's eye, this regular arising would almost be normal, you think.

It only derails when you get into the hall and find proof of the therapist's words. The crocodile is wrapped up and shivering without cold in his blanket, staring at the door across from yours, sealed off from everyone by dark masking tape. More and more have gathered there in recent hours. The first day, it was Spieler herself and Dr Wood that sat there; the next morning it was Dolly, and Dub joining her later on; today, it is a red-rimmed Kroko's turn.  
On a stretch of the wooden surface, a single word is etched, unchanged. You turn away and head to the lounge before you can read it, but you know full well what it says. You've seen it often enough.  
"Sly".

Sly, fellow inmate at this psychiatric clinic, often deluded and rarely one to halt conversation. Freewheeler and pervader. Fickle and fast and slow. Rattlesnake and reluctant prophet, in a stunning coat of many colours.

Sly, three days dead.

*****

Three. One. Five.

Numbers and equations make themselves ever known in the patient lounge, increasing and decreasing as toys come in and out of doors, to their self designated corners, doing what they must to cope. They all avoid the area closest to the therapy room, except when being escorted through as Kroko is right now, tucked carefully in the nurse's arms. That space is where he used to spin and play, and it doesn't feel right to infringe on it. Even the sun, through coincidence or pathetic fallacy, is hidden away so as not to trickle through.  
As you dwell underneath a window, you try to contemplate the muchness of everything, not that it takes your mind off of matters.

For as long as you can remember being here, the maximum capacity for this place has been six: one for each corner, the doctor, and yourself (plus two humans). It is a pleasant digit, unassuming and friendly, sounding soft in your head. Not cold, like three; not reminiscent of sicknesses, like seven. You've never had quarrel with 'six'.  
But it is here no more. Sly has been ripped out from the total, choking himself to an unexpected grave, and his absence clogs the air to threaten the rest of you with the same fate. Six is cut down to five, and it hooks into you like a brick-sized bur, much harsher in its mocking incompleteness. Smaller than it should be.

To be unofficial but even more accurate, six is cut down to four. You haven't seen Dr Wood emerge since yesterday, when he broke the upper limit by allowing far too many people to barge into the asylum to look for answers.  
Sly's death couldn't have been kept a secret forever, especially since he was the first toy to go, not only here but ever. You realize that. But to bring interviewers in en masse without warning, with their bulky cameras and microphones, making a swarm of clashing neon noise and intrusion and pressing them right up to everyone's faces, **your** face, so that you can hear the macabre fascination in their stubbled throats and taste the stink of cucumber and lime green on their breaths and making things too intense too loud get them out get out get out...  
You shrink into yourself and clasp your hands over your ears to stop the blazing memory surging back, letting your blocks drop in the process. It won't crowd, it's all right, they aren't here now. That was yesterday. You can calm down; you can control the flow of your raggedy air, though whether that is a good thing or bad is still hard to figure out.

 _"[Obviously, this... 'passing on' has been traumatic for all of us,]"_ the Wood of the past says in your mind, breaking through the attempts to ignore. _"[Kindermann will have to be informed of this. Spieler is a nervous wreck. Health and safety will be a far larger concern than before...]"_

You look out from your huddling at the room ahead of you, through a filter of muted sounds and auras. Dub, serving as living proof of the new tighter regime, works out under the reinforced 'no rope' sign. Spieler took it away in that first 24 hour stretch after everything changed. And yet he persists even with no time keeping to speak of, doing a steady if slightly shaky stream of press-ups, so his literal lockstep is at least intact, stronger if anything.  
A still-silent Dolly isn't so lucky, picking at the scissor-frayed edges where the tip of her sock used to be. You know the why of this one: it got in the way of the now-compulsory 'breathing checks'. Already, at the thought, you re-regulate. In, think about it, out. In, just as she taught you, out.  
The others, too, have been swept up in it. Toys may be robust in physical form, but now that survival is so uncertain, it's better to be safe and sorry than - unable. The nurse and Spieler have gone through and replenished the first aid kit, judging by the forest green bag on a shelf through a door's window. Your puzzle pieces are meant to have their edges sanded down soon, though how you have no idea; Kroko isn't allowed to retreat under the bed anymore; and Sly -

No.  
Instinct overriding reality, your eyes go to that oppressive part of the room, and you are met again with the dull thud of the significant lack of him.

This building really isn't the same without the snake. You expect him at every turn: draped over the lighting; under what has become your single pillow; poking his head out of the doctor's domain and hissing a question about why everyone is so gloomy, though perhaps not worded that way. Sometimes, you even think you see a hint of waving tail or sliding tongue. Each time, it is not him, only an echo of what should be.  
To so often anticipate him is foolishness, bordering on denial. But you know you're not the only one. Three days is a long time and yet no time at all for the world to turn without you, and still nobody can quite believe he is gone. Still the others think of him, speak of him, turn nightly interruptions into fond memories, tolerance to friendships, flaws to virtues.

Regrets into an excuse for further study. This is why Wood isn't among everyone else. Barely minutes after the reporters and recorders finally dispersed to your immense relief, he locked himself in his office.  
 _"[I'll be writing a new thesis over the next few days,]"_ he told you all before he shut the door, though mostly the staff. _"[I do not wish to be bothered during this time, so don't even attempt to do so. Much as we all hate it, toys are now mortal, and I'd be a poor excuse of a doctor if I didn't revise my theories to take that into account.]"_ And you presume this is what he's doing now, removing this, scratching out that, amending a paragraph or two, editing to prove that actually such and such can't happen as he thought it could and if it did then nobody would be grieving at all because it'd mean Sly wouldn't be **dead**...

And you wouldn't be dwelling on it by a wall, finding excuses not to confront the truth of the matter and yet always coming back round to it.

You won't - can't - pretend that this whole affair has hit you no harder than anyone else. The others mourn, but they still at least try to follow the expected path, in some fashion. Spieler still does her job. Wood and Dub do theirs. And in a way, you do as well, but slower, and with every step sinking you further. Especially since the interview.  
The reason for Sly's death was given out as 'asphyxiation', just like everyone else was told. Although the one with the most face-time, judging by one lens being always aimed at him, hid that aspect through buzz-words, the sentiment remained. _"[However this tragic **accident** came about, it is clear that our toys are not as safe as once thought.]"_  
But you know deep within that they are pushing the blame in the wrong direction.

After all, it is to you that he came, the first time the subject came up. It was to you that he entrusted that secret plea that he didn't want to die at all.

And if you hadn't puzzled through it and focused on it and ultimately determined that such a thing was impossible...  
maybe he wouldn't have.

*****

The day drags by, without even the courtesy of much distraction. When Kroko hurtles out of the therapist's grasp and regresses into his security box as soon as he's done, Dub reluctantly moves in to take his place. Eventually, twelve o'clock shows up, and it is your turn.

For someone who is almost meant to speak on your behalf, Spieler is relatively quiet today. She tries to help with actions more than words, double-checking the sounds your head is making with the cold metal of the stethoscope, and giving you paint therapy just in case you want to recreate the tinted-greyscale world you are in. Maintaining the rota, if nothing else.  
But that's fine. You don't respond to much of it, anyway. She needs her silent contemplation, and you need to be alone with the rotting guilt. After repeated attempts, she finally manages to sense this, and puts you back where you were, saying only "[It's okay, Lilo.]"  
As if she knows. As if she could.

The raven only emerges once from his gruelling task in late afternoon, and from the looks of things, it is to perform a head count, making sure nobody has dropped in his absence. There is still one of you, three of the others, and one of him; the total remains a razor-sharp five. And yet... your vision might be skewed because the nurse walks in front of you when he does this, but you think he accidentally counts Dolly twice.

Evening draws in, shutting out the outside light that did manage to get into the building; you can hear the black beginnings of a thunderstorm congregating outside. Bedtime is, as ever, at eight o'clock, everyone dispersing into their own marked territories. You still haven't joined block with block, but neither have you figured out what is stopping you from doing so.  
Nor have you escaped the fully-grown revelation. All of this, the bright harsh colours, the painful textures, everything... it is ultimately your fault. That hisses in your ear as you climb back into bed, pulling the covers up tightly over your head to give you a safe place, a cocoon.

Your fault the outside world had reason to come. Your fault no one has communicated, even with the capability and capacity. Your fault you are like this, every warning lashing into your gut, every fear binding your half-existent lungs.  
Yours. Yours. **Yours.**

Every inch of you begins to shake.

"[Aren't you hot in there? That looks uncomfy.]"  
A voice sounds from both close by and far away, rendered translucent and non-specific by the oppressiveness of the duvet. It's probably Kroko, here for comfort from the hint of rain, or sneaking in to play Musical Bedrooms. Either way, you can't face him or anyone right now, so you only tuck yourself away further, unable to stop the shivering.

"[You don't have to be above it for long,]" it says as if you'd replied. "[I'm just saying, you might suffocate under there if it's too low. And then you'll die too, and you won't be able to make up for anything at all.]"  
No, you amend, definitely not Kroko; he wouldn't talk about this so casually. Nor is it Dr Wood, for he'd use a larger vocabulary. But then who? Spieler? Nadel?  
"[Come on, come out of there. I want to see you again.]"  
You partially uncurl in confusion. Who is this? Why are they here? It's not like you can speak to them, assuage the spiking emotions. It's not like they'd want you to anyway, if they knew what you did. That it all falls down on...

"[Lilo, I know what it is. I can tell. It's not your fault, okay?]"

Something seizes in you, and you untangle yourself from your bundle and out from the quilt, not to retort or scare off, just to see who would presume such a thing --

\-- and you find yourself staring into the bright, vast, innocent stare of the deceased.


	2. There's a Ghost in my Lungs

Looking at the - fright? Miracle? - whatever this is at the foot of your bed, you are tempted to move back under the sheets, then up again. You almost do, in fact, but something stops you mid-pull, a sense that says it won't make any difference to the sight you see.

He is almost exactly how you remember him to be; though time dulls meaning, long or short, it doesn't appear to affect anything else. The long swirling body is intact, as is the forked tongue, the variant irises. He isn't knotted tight as he was the very last time you saw him, and the colours are more washed out; nonetheless, it is clearly him, talking to you like nothing ever went wrong.   
Did you finally fall asleep as soon as you got in here? Is this a dream, or an illusion? Or is that really Sly in the room with you, pulling off a secret second coming?

[Hi, Lilo,] he says, waving his tail. [I'm glad you came out. I didn't like to wake you up but I'm most times on the bed at night, and you were hiding and hiding and I wanted to get you back out so you could see me.]   
Even when unmuffled by the layers, the voice sounds more distant than concrete. Otherworldly, almost. And not even deliberately so, just bouncing off of the eaves of mind and room, like the raindrops falling on the window in the night.  
He moves closer in an attempt at concern. [You look all shaky. I didn't mean to scare you. I don't look that scary, do I?] He glances up and down himself to prove himself wrong; from the brittleness of his next statement, he's failed to do just that. [Yikes. I'm there, but I'm not. Guess that means I'm really dead then. God. No wonder you're hiding, **I'd**  hide to think about it.]

Really dead, yet acting alive. Sly is back, just as you've both hoped for and assumed impossible all day.  
...Unless... could he be a ghost, haunting you and your memories of the fateful conversation? You've never believed in such things, and nor really has anyone else you've known. But if toy corpses can shatter pre-conceptions, would their phantasms be that much of a stretch? And what alternative is there?

You test your budding theory by reaching a hand towards the snake, to touch him and feel him again, but he pulls back before you can make contact. [Uh-uh, no touching. If I **am**  dead, I don't want you to catch it too,] he warns. ['Sides, I can see if I'm a ghost myself. If I am, I can do this -] He twists a particular coil around and slides it over his head, but no further. [- um, and this - and - ] Tugging, pulling, what is he doing? Whatever it is, he gives up on it after a few more tries, unwinding. [Nope, can't go through myself like a wall. Ghosts are see-through so they can do that. ...Or, crap, it could be mice.]

Well, ghost or the apparent not, it can't be denied that at least a part of Sly is present. Part, in that something seems off-kilter about it all. This is Sly, but not quite. Appearance without actuality. There and not, just as he said, here, everywhere, making statements that you cannot confirm or retort, and filling you up with a poisonous emotion that you don't know whether to slot under 'grateful', 'bewildered', 'terrified' or all three.   
You have a who, a when and a where. What is he doing here? What is the why?

[Anyway, I'm not here to be or not be a thing. You don't really think this is your fault?] asks the not-so-other toy, interrupting your train of thought. [I think you thought it was, and I don't think it's true. That it was. You didn't tie me up, did you? So you couldn't have killed me.]   
You guess that answers that question: he's here to obfuscate the facts and lie to you. You grip the sheets in preparation to brush him off if he's going to claim that. You don't want him to go back to the realm from where he came any more than you wanted him to leave the first time; but surely it is a pointless task to break the planes of reality for that sole purpose?

[I wouldn't lie about this, Lilo. When was the last time I lied? I don't remember, must've been an age ago. And why would I?]  
Your hands make the covers ripple and wave, but it doesn't dissuade him.   
[What would even be the gain? I can never hold a stick more, let alone a gain. Can't remember what a gain looks like. Three days is a long time--]  
Up and down in a snap, lifting him with it. But despite nearly being tossed to the ceiling, he remains steadfast.

[Lilo, come on.] He sidles even nearer to you, unaffected by the sway; you shift in reverse until you hit the left side of the headboard. His gaze is steady but unfocused, as is he himself. [I thought you wanted me back. And I'm here, so why are you acting all Kroko-snappy?]  
More to the point, why is he saying things that you have no reason to hear? Yes, you wanted him returned to this place, so that people could stop mourning and yell at him for scaring them all like that, but not as... incorporeal and pale as he is being. Not this faded scrap in the darkness. Not this way.  
Your hands wrap around the blocks left on the bedside table, for comfort and protection against this mirage.  
You want the _real_ Sly back.

[I **am**  real,] he points out, reading the resonations of your actions. [I'm as real as I'm gonna be now. I'm not a demon or soul or take-away monster or anything. I'm just a me. And I'm a me that's telling you that you don't have to be mad at you because a me - I mean **I** died!] His voice turns into a facsimile of redness as he continues to fib through his tongue. [I did all the tangled up bits, not you. I started worrying about whether I'd go and got you into it, not you you me. You me. You me, if any, if any point, I'm the one that killed my **own** \--!]

He cuts off mid-word and ducks down with a cry, something clatters against the far edge of the room, and you realize with a start that you threw one of your puzzle pieces at him.

Before it can sink in that you almost hurt him a second time, the door swings open and an ever vigilant Dr Spieler comes in, lit only by a torch in her hand. "[I heard the crash, are you okay Lilo, what's happening?!]" she asks quickly, scanning the room for a potential intruder.   
You point to Sly, gazing at her now on the shifted covers. Even if he's misattributing the cause of his condition, she deserves to know of his return, physical or not.   
But she doesn't notice him at all, aiming her beam on the block against the wall instead. "[Oh Lilo, how'd that get over there?]" She retrieves it for you, putting it and its partner back in their original resting place. "[I know this whole thing must be frightening to you, but you mustn't throw things,]" she gently scolds you. "[It wakes everyone up, and it could be dangerous. You made me think that something had happened to...]" She visibly suppresses a shudder.

What is she, blinded? Can she not see the spectre waving hello? You gesture harshly to him again, forcing her to spot something, _anything_  of him...

"[Okay, okay, I'll tuck you in.]"   
He slithers off into a corner as she bends down, not helping your cause. She lays you back on the pillow and pulls the sheets up to where you tend to find them comfortable, quickly making sure you're still breathing (in, out) as she does.   
"[That's better. Now try to get some sleep. I think we all need some right now. Goodnight.]" And with that, she disappears, shutting the door behind her.

Not even a mention of the other party.

First caught between dead and alive; then trapped between fabric and air... and now, watching him stare at you without speaking, you are forced to wonder if he is really there at all.

*****

You keep a wavering eye on him for the rest of the night. He still makes no move to finish the conversation he began, simply sitting with his head tilted as if expecting you to make the orders.   
At some point, the three nights in a row of minimal sleep must catch up with you. You don't remember ever nodding off, but you are nonetheless jolted awake by a particularly loud clatter of thunder, the shock of electricity blinding your room through the window. He hasn't disappeared in the meantime, but refuses to comment; from there on out, you take the opposite approach of turning away from him.

He is gone by dawn's first breaking.

This new morning continues the same as the last three, for the most part. No one is sitting in front of Sly's room when you come out, still protected by a barricade. That means it must be your turn, so you rest, blocks back in your hand, and observe the tall thin window for a while. You're tempted to try and hack your way inside, to see if the snake is hiding in there, waiting for another chance to creep out, but ultimately you decide against it. What would be the point?

You don't stay for long, as Spieler expects you earlier than usual. Perhaps she's realized the true impossibility of getting you to open up, and wants to get you done as soon as possible. You don't resist the nurse's grip, merely sitting and thinking as she flips through her clipboard.   
Halfway through the allotted time, the Sly apparition comes back, intermittently peeking out from behind a cushion. This time, you do not try to shoo him away. At least it proves that last night was not merely a lucid dream gone wrong; and this peacefulness has put you in a more tolerating mood.   
"[Lilo? What are you looking at?]"  
But how you wish that he could be seen by others too.

The major points do not differ. The reality of your role in all of this is unchanged. The world stays on its fixed path, ever going, going. The toys are scattered across the blue, as before, that forbidden space unoccupied even now. In fact, this haunting makes the absence all the more palpable. If he weren't picky about when to appear, he could copy the actions of his past for you, put on a show of running into the wall and following his shadow, yet it would make no difference. The hall would be just as empty; the hope, just as false.   
You tuck your feet under your hands, blistering in your thanklessness.

Things really start to change when Spieler goes to knock Wood up, seemingly prompted by Nadel judging by her approach. She's not going to succeed, given his seclusion thus far, but it gives you something to watch.

She raps thrice on the door and waits. There is no denial, nor affirmation.  
"[Wood, are you all right in there?]" she calls, rubbing her wrist. "[Nurse Nadel wanted to know how things were going with the new thesis?]"  
Not a hint of recognition comes from that room, in voice or face.   
"[Can you hear me? Or don't you want to talk to me?]" If by a slim chance that is a joke, you don't get it. And nor, it seems, does he.

By this time, the other human herself is up there too, and the two whisper whitenesses to each other. You can't pick up on all of them, though you can guess as you get closer: it's not like the raven to not at least tell her to go away, is the general gist.  
The others start to crowd around them too, huddling at their shoes. The obvious answer is to smash it down together while everyone is still a throng. And if you didn't want to get out now that all of them are in, you'd help them do just that. You've never been in the doctor's actual office before; besides, it might, if nothing else, start you on the long journey of repenting for your mistakes.

It is eventually Dub that moves first, charging himself into the thing. Unexpectedly, it turns out to have been unlocked from the beginning; it doesn't take much of an impact to make it swing gently aside.

More pressing is what you all see when it does.   
Put kindly, the room is a cluster of frozen chaos. Strewn across the floor are various tomes, extracts thereof, and fragments opaque and otherwise that could be made of glass, china, or some chimerian alloy of the two. The source of the mess is no doubt the bookcase lying flat on the floor, having knocked aside a chair in its falling.  
Dr Wood is nowhere to be found.

The staff spring into action immediately - "[Everyone, stay where you are, we'll take care of this]" - stepping over all toys and dangers to get to the shelves and return them to where they might have been. The two of them have to work together to do so, but it reveals the missing toy underneath. He's flat on his back, spread-eagle, staring at the light fixtures and not much else.   
Without bothering to pick him up, they stoop down and surround him with questions so alarmingly loud and panicked that they're hard to distinguish from each other. His beak is touched at one point, a breathing check that you return on instinct, to flush out the recoil of the media inquisition. You let the atmosphere flow through you.

From the sounds of things, he does not.   
"[Spieler, he's not breathing!]"  
"[I know!!]" she cries, voice perpetually pink now, and you can't blame her. "[Wood, please don't, please don't let this be happening, this can't--]"

Anything else she was going to say is cut off by what happens next. She is picking him up as she talks, moving back his veil, and at the worst possible time, his head snaps back with it, making a sickening rip.

Someone shrieks, you don't know who. Spieler drops the doctor, his body going limp, hood coming loose to reveal a pair of blank, lifeless eyes.

This can't be happening again. You can't tear your eyes away from the sight despite the terror erupting around you, in you, throughout you. Wood can't be dead, killed in his room by his own furniture, right in front of you. This can't be happening again! You can't be feeling this fragile this set this nauseous this broken this disappearing, he can't be gone, not with all the precautions everyone set up. This isn't right this isn't real you can't be seeing this. **This can't be happening again!!**

Through the deafening roar, your ears pick up on the words [security cameras]. Good thinking, Nadel, more words run through, Spieler's or maybe someone else's. Maybe they got what happened. Maybe they'll know who did this, how he got there. Accident is the best case scenario. Any worse and...  
Either way you volunteer yourself by looking around for a door that could lead to them, to where they are kept. It'd make sense for it to be in here, in a way out of the rushing of confused and flustered toys and people. Mercifully a side room does catch your spinning notice, and you go inside it at the fastest pace you've ever ran, nearly clipping your foot on a shard as a result.

There is no escape from the truth in here, ringing in every pore of you, but at least you think you're on the right track now. The place is full of monitors, a whole desk-wall of them, six or seven per row. But each screen is covered in the crinkling sight of static, crawling over them and your innards. No input from anywhere. On autopilot now, you decide someone has to have cut the wires. That's the only explanation. Nadel can take care of that.  
Meanwhile, you have to set your blocks aside for a bare second and deal with an errant piece of paper, crumpled in a corner.

You unfold it, flap by flap, and read it. _[Security Camera Re-Activation Code (in case of disconnection)]_ , it begins, in Dr Wood's unread but all-too-fitting calligraphy. And then a blot, a hash of ink that might have once been a number.   
This, and its conclusion from another unknown hand, chills you to the core.

> _[He deserved what he got._   
> _\- V]_


	3. Why You Sleep with One Eye Open

By the time you are aware of your surroundings again, rows of curved screens blaring their disconnection have been replaced by the more recognizable walls of the patient lounge. No sign of the staff, only their voices on the other side of the door. They must have escorted the plushies out while they deal with the destruction in that now equidistant room, turning over and over again the note that you automatically handed to them when asked.

_"...[you've got to remember the code, you've worked with these things so you must--]"_   
_"[Are you kidding? All I've done is watch the screens and read, I don't know how to operate them.]"_   
_"[Well, somebody has to have done before he...]"_

It's an odd sensation, literally feeling the concerns and worries of the past few days, petty or otherwise, curl up and dissolve as ants in bleach, as salt in water. It's no more pleasant than it was the first time this happened; if anything, it's worse now, that saline solution poured over the wound.

Dr Wood is dead too.   
No, even that's sugar-coating the situation. Bitterness, not sweetness.

Dr Wood, judging by the tone, by the reactions of everyone, was **murdered**. You never suspected that such an ugly word, its place set in the far-off worlds of history and fiction, would apply to the reality you inhabit until now. It rings all too true, as covered in spikes as the number five, as apathetic as four.   
Only four.

_"...[feel awful. The one night I didn't check what that noise was, this happens...]"_   
_"[There's nothing you could have done, Alexis. It was probably instant. He wouldn't have felt a thing.]"_   
_"[But his head... I could have done something before this, just moved out all the pillows, glass things, taken the case away, ANYTHING.]"_   
_"[You can't stop something you couldn't see coming...]"_

The obvious questions spin through your mind, to push out the offending noises.  
Who would want to see him dead? Him, the Head of the asylum in the absence of Kindermann? Granted, his often-mentioned PhD can't compare to a coaxing smile or soothing purple tone for effectiveness, but you were never under the impression that his differing methods had made him enemies.  
How did they get into the building? If Spieler was so vigilant as to let them slip by unnoticed, they must have been clever. They sabotaged the CCTV right down to the wiring, for the love of buttons. Cold, precise, calculated. How did they know?

Who is V?  
This bothers you the most, the writing memorized from curve to edge. It overlaps that once nonsensical etching of you hanging, both burning red, the after image conflating as one.  
You don't know anyone whose name begins with V. Neither should anyone else. But did Wood, once, in his life before here? Is this merely a pseudonym? A code? Either way, it has to be something important. No one signs a murder confession without it meaning something, you surmise.

...But then, given the track record of your assumptions so far, you wouldn't be surprised now if you are incorrect.   
You failed to keep your own mortality in check, after all.

_"[...killed two toys, Nadel! They're both dead! And we've only got this stupid note to go on for one of them and I just... I don't know anymore.]"_   
_"[I don't think anyone does.]"_

...Your own...

In horror, a thought crystallizes over you. If Wood was assassinated, with no culprit in sight, that means they could strike again. And who knows who their next target would be?

It could be Kroko, the toy you turn to, appearing to be nothing but blanket now. Under or over or both, torn between safety and security, being seen and not.   
It could be Dub, staring into space, eyes occasionally twitching. You can see his mouth working. Is he undergoing the same path of logic, within his head?  
It could be Dolly, hooves on her chest, trying to settle herself. Rendered mute by unrelated happenstance and shock.

It could be **you** , panicking, hopeless, defenseless. You're in as much danger as the rest of them. In a way, you'd be the perfect second mark. No way to tell anyone who the perpetrator was, is, before or after they place their hands around your throat and squeeze, making lights and stars the last thing you ever--

Slide, thud.  
Through an ironic mercy, you are pulled out of that sudden vivid day-mare by, out of the corner of your eye, the sight of the turtle collapsing.

Before you can steel yourself to move across the space between you and the door, a startled Kroko is up and off immediately, disregarding all etiquette to call for the humans. Perhaps realizing they can do nothing more for the already gone, they rush out, taking care not to tread on you, and see to Dub.  
For a terrible moment, you fear that the pressure and the panic has gotten to him internally, and burst his ever-clear lungs or textile heart. (The visions, hypotheticals, realities, haven't entirely been pushed aside.) But no, thank Steiff, thank God, he is still living, they discover. He's just unresponsive. No calls or moving of arms can get through to him like this.   
Breathing - you can faintly hear him hyperventilating, if anything - yet paralyzed in fear, seeing nothing. Something shattered.

After a few attempts to rouse him, Spieler is lost. Nadel, sandpaper in her throat, suggests that they take him back to the therapy room to deal with him properly there, just in case.  
"[No, no no no, not in there, not again!]" she cries, bopped down at his side, shaking him slightly and her head vigorously. The very suggestion seems to be anathema to her. "[We can't do that again, we can't, we can't. I can't risk using that thing again!]"  
"[Spieler, not in front of the--]"   
But she has utterly forgotten herself. "[I don't want to kill another one. I can't, I can't use it again. It killed Sly, it can't kill him too! No, it can't, it can't,]" she chants.

You, and the two that remain functional, all seem to pick up on the same thing. The air holds a collective tenseness, the nurse shifting, the therapist whispering wordlessly now.

It is left to poor Kroko to solidify your shared thought, the only communicator left.  
"[Um. Dr Spieler?]"  
"[I... y-yes, Kroko?]" she says, trying to return to a state of semi-composure.  
"[I thought Sly d... I thought he went away because he couldn't breathe. What's all this about a 'thing' doing it?]"

She goes unsettlingly pale.

****

You are back in your bedroom, torn between trying to properly drift to sleep and sifting anew through the swirl of things you learned this afternoon, frightened by how much sense the whole thing does and doesn't make, when the now familiar voice pierces through.

[Oh, _there's_ the rock.]  
The phantom Sly slides onto your bed from the floor, refusing to explain his departure and arrival, and looks out of your window. You have to climb out from under the covers and stand on the edges of your feet to check it out, just to see what he means. Outside, the sky is the same shade of blue as the most distant of seas, dotted with the glinting of the cosmos, aeroplanes, and a certain parallel. The silhouettes of clouds drift by to render it vaguely dust-coloured, but the gentle glow of a full moon is still unmistakeable.

[I guess all the lights came back through the paint,] says the snake wistfully as you lower yourself. [Pity I can't actually take my memory back with me. Then I'd know for sure that the fortnights are all gone with them.]  
Yes, that's true, isn't it? One day, three, ten... it's been two whole weeks since the more robust version of him first approached you to conflate matters. Before, a blank space for life squandered; now, a vibrant orb for death renewed.   
Such a dissimilarity between the past and the present. And your actions, the fear he nurtured, the need to search for answers, caused it all.  
[Lilo, we've been into this. It's not your fault. I was just curious and in the wrong spot, that's all.]

You ignore that, reluctantly stuck on another contradiction. You might have been the harbinger of his death, but you weren't the final nail in his coffin...   
Your stomach knots painfully, and you feel sick to it. No, that isn't fair. It wasn't Dr Spieler's fault, or Wood's, a headless victim of V on the floor. Her words run through you like the waves from a puddle, the spinning of a silver spiral spring. _It was panic, they didn't know, how COULD they have known, how could they have heard, mustn't let this slip, no one was thinking straight, dangerous, frantic, don't hate her, don't cry, don't let them see her cry, don't freak, mustn't freak,_ **clear your mind before it hurts!**

Sly slumps back down to turn to you once the mental dust has settled. [Something up?]  
Forget her - how could **he** not have known what got him? Couldn't he have told you sooner, saved Spieler the explanation for at least one of those that remain?

[I don't think I could've. I mean, you didn't know yourself, right? And I'm here for you because you wanted to talk to me, so I came from with your thoughts.] He gestures to his head for emphasis, trying and failing once more to phase it through. [If you didn't know about the horrible bits, I didn't myself. But now you do, and I do too, because we're a bit linked that way. ...Is this coming out right?]   
In part savouring the opportunity to remove your thoughts from the dire topic, you consider this. Sly's understanding, linked to yours? Your visuals are already connected as such, in that only you can see him... this would be a logical conclusion. Logical, but not ideal.   
Does this mean, then, that he really _is_ spawned from grief, not from the beyond?

[I can't answer that if you can't, but I'll still say so. Think about it. When you have questions, you wonder about them, and I know about the wondering without you even saying at all,] he explains, proving his point to wordless you. [And, let's be honest, Lilo, I can be more clear now than I ever ever could. I can actually use language, for most of it anyway. So either being a not-ghost is making me psychic smart, or my mind's yours as well, and I'm really not sure which is which. Sorry.]

Great. It's true, then. You now have your own personal Auguste Gusteau.   
Somebody up there must like you.

[That might actually be a good thing though.]  
This, of all things, throws you. What does he mean?  
[Well, you're here because you can't talk, yeah? But if you can ask me questions and I can get them, there's gotta be a voice in you that makes the words. It might not sound like you proper, but it's still a part of you.] He glances at you with wide sincere eyes, dancing with lack of life. [Come on, try it. Have a think.]

Ludicrous. You've been trapped in your silence for as long as you can remember...  
...you think to yourself. And even as you do, you recognize the letters and definitions, repeated back to you. A very odd sensation indeed.

The real-unreal Sly looks like he's debating patting you on the back, but settles with slithering in your general direction. [There we go. I knew it was there somewhere. Now you don't have to be alone, even when I'm not here anymore.  
[Either way, if you're right, you're kinda talking to yourself.]

****

A piece of your mind and body resists any attempts you make at getting some repose tonight. No matter how much you have tried to push away from this fact, the stench of death is still fresh, and you want to be vigilant in case you are indeed next.  
But eventually, you do see the aura of the moon disappear from the window, see the shapes of the world coalesce into black...

...and sit up in the middle of a gargantuan field, the colours of probing questions and crocodile hides expanding as far as the eye can see until it hurts to look at. You might have been here before, but you can't ascertain. You'd remember being where the grass is too bright and jaded compared to the cloudless sky, a familiar bird soaring without wind.

You stand up to make a move, you feel you have to deep in your weight, and a voice calls to you from behind. The landscape spins on your feet and it is Sly again, this time not a memory's ghost but tangible, solid around you as he drags you along to meet the others, for they are all gathered in a particular spot, talking, dancing, enjoying themselves. Even the doctor is there, head in place, as if it had never been severed, and joining in the apparent festivities with no cares in the world.

You, too, mingle with the others, anxiety and problems fading into laughter and oral lights. You still can't talk, but they respond as if you do, everyone using the same comprehensible but unknown tongue. It's a return to a simpler time, you realize, one where you don't have to handle the creeping emotions by yourself, one where you are always right, one where toys can live as long and as problem-free as they please.

One where only you can feel this sudden soft trembling underneath. Wait, now everyone spots it too, looking down as the grass unstitches at the seam, as plates slide apart, as the ground forms a small hill, rising at a steady pace until it slows to a halt.   
The land - is it - is it breathing?

_In..._

A word without voice, a sound human and not, featureless, rumbles through the air, even from so far away, interrupted by an awful cracking, making you shut your eyes for only a second, but when they open up the earth is flat again and Sly has collapsed, spirit ebbing from his body, and somehow you know, they all know, that the proof lies with you, liquified, dripping from your palms.  
  
 _Out._

Everyone panics and huddles together to get away from you, and you shake your hands to get the stains free but still they stick. A second time, it bulges, and this time you can see an edge to the landscape, marked by where the green is dying too, pale brown and dry and barren.  
 _In..._  
A slicing sound now, and an involuntary spasm of your arm, and Dr Wood slides apart, every piece spreading across the floor.   
_Out. That's it._

The pattern repeats, recycles, rewinds, the deaths getting more frequent, the sky fading, the decay closing in, creeping. You watch, unable to react, as your body moves against you, sending so many others to their doom.   
_In..._  
Rise, fall, crunch. Dub is gone, torn to ribbons by the scissors in your grasp.   
_Out._

You drop them to the floor. Stop it, you have to stop it!  
 _In... keep going..._  
Rise, fall, stab. Dolly is run through from her head to her tail with the needle she used to create the tatters of her sock.  
 _Out._

Maggot-like insects crawl over the edges of the lonely field, waiting to swallow you whole.  
 _In..._  
Rise, fall, push. The soil crumbles and you feed Kroko's flesh to its wet and sticky bowels.  
 _Out._

There is no one left, you are surrounded by corpses and darkness and hopelessness. No sky, no life. Only the small circle that marks where you are remains green. Nowhere to run.  
 _Last one. In..._  
Nowhere to hide. You killed them all. You deserve to meet this end.   
You feel the burn descend, pull you higher, you see the true source of light. You can't struggle. A puppet on navy and silver strings, a throbbing wooden head.

The rope jerks up, and the candle is snuffed

_Out._

***

No no no no no no no!!

You'd wake up with that tearing from your mouth if it, you, could. As it is, you arise while clawing at yourself, kicking out at shuffled covers, a delayed attempt at escaping the end that no longer exists. Your chest heaves at a dangerous pace, and you have to force it back to its usual state without reminding you of how that dream went. It takes roughly two minutes, from what you can sense.

The beast in your mind has just retracted its quills, even while hissing at you that fiction or not, you are still responsible to some degree for all this, when the air is hit with another clashing scream from somewhere else.

It seems you slept later than you would have done otherwise; you make your way out to find that Dolly and Kroko are already up, and indeed that it's the latter who broke the morning, having recoiled onto his back from the room next to the taped-shut door. Spieler is there immediately, rousing him, trying to get some sense out of him as he awakens from a faint, shakes, stumbles over his words.

What he eventually manages to get out proves that the trauma of today is far from over.  
"[He's - he isn't -- D- Dub is...]"

Dub's eyes are still open when the few of you that remain get to him. At first, the only sign that he isn't simply still catatonic is the changed position, flopped onto his stomach instead of tucked up. But upon further inspection on everyone's part, you find his skin - every inch of him, brown, gold, orange - is covered in holes, the size of pencil lint. Stuffing leaks out of some of them, wisps of white, stark against the circumstances.  
The slash across his throat is noticed last.

This time, there's no ambiguity. He's become the second body, a further case study of the symptoms of being taken too soon. Especially his now permanently fixed scrutiny... Do all toys die with their eyes open? You're not sure you want to find out.

You shut them yourself, if only to stop it from scaring everyone further, when Spieler spots something. She's found a box of needles resting in a corner. Lid closed, but sellotape torn. The murder weapon in plain sight.   
Except not quite. The container was covered by another note, in the exact same scrawl as before from a distance. She holds it up to the lightbulb and reads it now in an unsteady voice.

> _[Thought I'd help by cutting out the middle man. I didn't use_   
> _what they wanted to. That is THEIR method, and I refuse to_   
> _be like them. Try to hide all you want. I will still come._   
> _\- V]_

The therapist drops to her knees; the last surviving two hover over the corpse; and you can feel, in fear, the imaginary noose tighten further around your own neck.


	4. Interlude 1: Poor Language, It Doesn't Deserve Such Treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One patient learns to sign. The rest linger in the perpetual silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of debate with myself in the past as to whether I wanted these interludes to be released as separate stories in the series, because of the differing POV and word count, or to be added to the fic wholesale. Eventually, it was decided between my girlfriend and me that they were just too integral to the plot to be put separately, and linking you to a separate story in the middle of one chapter only to link you back to the next chapter of the first story would just be a waste of everyone's time. So...
> 
> ... *sighs*
> 
> I said at the beginning that this would be difficult, due to my lack of experience with mortality in my direct social circle. In the gap between my last update of this fic and today, I've felt more of it, closer. Specifically, of my father's long time coworker, of someone on the internet my friends once aspired to, and of a long-time regular of one of my volunteer gigs. All three were sudden in their own way; one a suicide, one simply collapsing into it on the same day, the news of the last's fate being delayed to until the day of the second's funeral.
> 
> This interlude was already written by the time this chain of death occurred, and yet I find myself more and more in pre-written Kroko's position as time passes, down to the trying not to cry. I am only thankful that the one I love romantically has not yet died, but I feel just as selfish as though it were the case.
> 
> I'm not sure where I'm going with the note, so I'll leave off with this. John, Tina, Justin Carmical... I hope you're doing well, wherever you are. I hope I do the emotional catharsis you left behind justice.
> 
> Die Anstalt © Martin Kittsteiner.

**10:06 AM**

"[Lilo, how would you like to learn sign language?]"

The toy hippopotamus, who up until this point has been looking out at nothing in particular, is jarred by Dr Spieler's suggestion. He pulls his blocks down to his sides and looks at her with the closest thing to a confused expression he can muster. It looks like he's wondering how she can say something so light-heartedly in the aftermath of recent events. How she can almost be jovial.

The truth of the matter is, she isn't. But a little masking of the worse of her emotions can never hurt, not after the battering they've had.  
It's been two days, or is it three, since Dub was taken from this world. After that, everything has literally been quiet - two current mutes and one partway there, and the spate of the impossible having disappeared as quickly as it began. She knows better than to assume that it's stopped altogether, but a part of her is still allowing a glint of optimism. She needs that more than anything.  
It, and Nadel (whose first name she really needs to find out later), has prompted her to thinking. Since there is no more she can do for the, well, departed, she has to put all her efforts into protecting those that are still at risk, from external and mental threats. And that, in turn, has led her to her current proposal.

"[I ask because, um. I did some research into things last night, while you were asleep. It didn't seem fair that everyone else has been making progress and you're still sitting here at square one. Not that I'm telling you off, Lilo,]" she hastily adds. "[Everyone gets better at their own pace. I just want to help you with that as best as I can. Especially with everything that's been... happening.]"  
All he does is squeeze his blocks, a sign of sorts that he's listening.

"[And - and I was looking up how to help the m- beings with mutism communicate, and I found some of Kindermann's books on DGS. He must have been saving them for someone else.]" She doesn't voice that 'someone else' would have been Lilo himself if worse came to worse, were he still here. She can't make him feel any more regressive. "[And it hit me, maybe I could use them to teach you. After all, you have hands, in a manner of speaking. And now that we've increased health and safety around here -]"  
 _[Not that it's done any good...]_  
"[- you're going to need **some** way to interact with everyone else. So how about this one?]"

He looks down at his tools of learning, then up. Not receptive, but not outright refusing either. Mulling.

"[It won't be that hard, if that's what you're worried about. I'm not expecting you to be fluent today or anything.]"  
No, that isn't quite true. Lilo is far cleverer than any of her fellow staff members - Kindermann, Nadel, Wood (the _late_ Wood, she is forced to add, causing a shiver in her soul) - have given him credit for. She's suspected this since he brought up the question that kickstarted this whole chain of events: that of his own mortality. An awareness that, until recently, no one else possessed.  
If he sets his mind to it, he can learn this easily. But given everything, that's a very big if.

"[Lilo, I really don't want to pressure you into this. If it sounds like I am, I'm sorry. It's just, if you can't talk, this is honestly the only way I can think of right now to overcome that without pushing you too far. And if something goes wrong again - if. If V comes back.]" Only now does her façade of calm slip, in the prickling of her arms; she soothes one of them quickly with her own grip. "[Then it'll be an emergency, and I need to understand every toy in an emergency, even you. So... do you want to learn the basics, at least? You don't have to go further than that if you don't want to. Okay?]"

This seems to have persuaded him. He nods.

Her body and mind relax, the tenseness deflating. "[Okay, great! Then shall we get started?]"  
She slides off of her chair and picks up the top book from the pile underneath it, the Basic version of _Fingeralphabet Deutschland_. In a flash, it is spread before him.  
"[We're not going to have time today to learn anything more complex than the manual alphabet,]" she explains. "[But from that you'll be able to string letters together, and that's a start. Take a browse through this, stop on the first one you want to learn.]"

He flips slowly through the pages, taking in every illustrated gesture. After a couple of minutes, he lays it flat on the page of "L" and glances at her expectantly. One of three that makes up his own name - typical autistic understanding.

"[L, huh? Good, that's an easy one. Use your right hand - I mean, I'm assuming you're right handed here,]" she corrects, raising her own. He copies her. "[Now stick your thumb out for the bottom of the L, like this,]" (this is demonstrated,) "[and your index finger up for the stem. Can you do that?]"

He moves his thumb just fine. But every attempt he makes at creating the upward-point results in him raising the whole of the rest of his mitten-shaped hand instead.

Mitten hands.  
Whoops. No wonder he was hesitant.  
"[Oh, right, right. Finger differentiation. We ought to work on that first.]"

***

**11:05 AM**

One of the stipulations of Spieler's contract with Kindermann is that she can't burn herself out by having more than one hour per patient per day. He knew, even back then, how emotionally attached and exhausted she can get.  
So she's given Lilo a break. He can make pseudo-fingers on his right hand now, and has learned two thirds of the signs in his fashion, from A to Q and back again.  
Clever Lilo.

Kroko took his place a few minutes ago, though not to much benefit. He is usually marginally more talkative, in that he responds to her questions when asked. But today, he seems to have clammed up. Or rather, crocodiled up.

"[Kroko, what's wrong?]" she coaxes - a stupid question, but a formality to be kept. "[Are you still feeling scared?]"  
She takes the clamping around the baby blue blanket, and his tail by extension, as a yes. It's a miracle that he's been able to keep the thing for this long; it doesn't seem to have caused any damage yet...  
"[Do you want to tell me what's scaring you?]"  
Another redundant inquiry, because she knows all too well what it is. The same thing that's affected everyone else in similar manners. Even he is sure enough of that to simply ignore her.  
"[All right, that was a bad way of putting it. Talk to me, then? Do you want to talk about it? Get it off your chest?]"  
He shakes his head so fast she can actually hear the creasing and uncreasing of each layer of fabric.  
"[Why not?]"

All these open inquiries for nothing; he isn't going to respond. She slaps her temperamental wrist, self-chastizing. Why does she keep making these amateur therapeutic mistakes? Grief isn't an excuse, surely. Even when the world is falling down around her, she has to push through, just as when her grandfath--

"[Can't cry.]"  
Her ears perk up at the sentence shot into the silence. When she checks, Kroko's looking down in a plaintive sorrow at his comfort item.  
"[Did you say something?]"  
"[Mmhm. I said I can't cry.]" He's speaking softly, just the right volume for only her to hear, but it's sufficient for now. "[If I think about the scary dangerous things, what happened to Dr Wood and Dub and everything, I might start crying, and then the water will get on my skin.]" His hold tightens. "[No, no water. No crying.]"

Luckily, she knows just what to do about that. "[Kroko, it's all right,]" she tries to soothe, passing a box of tissues from the side table to the shaking reptile. "[Here. If you think tears are coming, you can wipe them away with these. Then they won't hurt you and you can still speak to me.]"  
He mumbles a "danke" and immediately pulls one out of the blue and grey swirl box. The subsequent rubbing is so strong that she briefly fears he's going to scrub his sight away, but he does stop.

"[That's better, isn't it?]"  
"[A bit.]"  
"[Would you like to talk now?]"  
"[I don't know. I don't think it'll help,]" he confesses, absently passing the used tissue between his claws. "[It might get me thinking about other things for a while. But you'll still be sad and in danger and Dub'll still... it won't have changed.]"  
This is true, but she doesn't say so. She just gives him a reassuring look, waiting for him to either continue or not.

He does: "[Dr Spieler? Am I bad?]"  
"[I don't think so. Why do you ask?]"  
"[Because when - _it_ \- happened to Dub, it hurt on the inside more than the others did. Even Sly. Is that horrible?]"  
She shakes her head. "[Not at all. You were the one who found him in the end. That's bound to leave an impa--]"

"[No, that's not what I meant. Though that wasn't very nice either... I can't get that out of my head. Seeing him like that. It's been in my dreams and everything, in the pit that I fall into, with the eyes on the walls. _His_ eyes.]" Another rag yanked out, rub rub rub. "[I'm sorry again for screaming.]"  
"[It's fine. I told you, it's fine.]"

"[But it doesn't **feel** fine,]" he insists. "[It feels awful. That's my point. All this - this sadness and everything, I felt it before, it ached lots, but now that Dub's done it too it's gotten bigger and it's even worse like somebody tore my arm off only I can still feel it there and...]"  
Trailing off, he starts moving his left limb around, up and down, across. He must be checking it hasn't in fact been severed.

When he's done, he gets to the crux of his argument. "[I. I really liked Dub, you know. I think that's why. I liked him in a different way to how I like the others here.]"  
"[I know you did, Kroko.]" She's known for quite a while, truth be told. The blossoming relationship between the crocodile and the turtle, despite all their best efforts, truly earned its place as the patients' worst-kept secret.  
"[That's why it hurts so much.]" Dab. "[I know he'd want me to be strong and get through it like you are, but I can't. I'm too scared.]" Dab rub, voice cracking. "[I'm scared, I'm scared that I'm going to have to go too, and that everyone else is gonna, and that there's someone out to hurt us, and we're all in trouble. But I still can't tell myself that's the worst part, because Dub's... because Dub's dead too! He's **dead** and I don't want to die and I don't want **anyone** to die and I just want him to come back with everyone else!]" By this point, he's just grabbed the whole box and stuffed his face inside it. "[I'm sorry, don't yell at me!]"

Spieler senses that her superior can hear his unleashed despair from Japan, and would feel just the same as her, and as him.  
Lost.

"[Kroko, Kroko, don't do that. You're going to hurt your neck if you do that.]"  
Coming closer, trying to ignore her heart tearing itself asunder, she carefully pulls the container off of his head. Some loose tissues fall out and around his quivering form like clouds.

"[Kroko, it's okay, I won't yell. Everyone grieves in their own way. Everyone feels different degrees of sadness about this. You're not in trouble for this at all.]" The words sound false, hackneyed even, but they're the best she can do.  
"[It hurts...]" he hiccups, grabbing her forearm and pulling it to him for protection, hanging on to it.  
"[I know. It hurts me too. But we can both hurt for as long as we need to.]" Well, _he_ can, anyway. "[And when it stops, we can get through it together. Okay?]"  
"[...okay.]"

Noiselessness fills the air for another long minute before, while letting go, he speaks again.  
"[...Can we talk about something else now, Dr Spieler?]"  
"[Of course we can.]"

***

**12:44 PM**

For most distressing things, it is easy to forget that they are ever present, hovering above the heads of all, by focusing on something else, be it telling Kroko about what Lilo is doing today or actually aiding the hippo in said activity. By now, he has learned all of the letters, though he is still having trouble with the diacritic ones, and the process of creating a necklace of words from these beads has begun.  
But in this specific state of affairs, the reason he needs to do this continues to pulse. Inescapable.

"[Okay, Lilo, you're doing really well. Two words done already! Can you quickly spell your name for me?]" she asks, attempting to be unexpected. The key to knowing any language, spoken or otherwise, is not to be caught off guard, and here is no exception.  
Fortunately, he is on the ball. He curls down an upper edge of his right hand, still adjusting to the idea of substitute fingers, and sticks out his thumb; switches to a pseudo-pinky; back to the first; and looping it around to a circle. L-I-L-O.  
"[Oh, well done! That's brilliant!]"  
For the first time in what must be a week by now, she can see a hint of a genuine smile follow the path of the zip.

Speaking of zips - "[I think we ought to learn Dolly's name next, don't you?]" says Spieler, to his approval. "[It uses most of the same letters as yours, so it should be easier than Kroko's. Do you remember how to make the letter D?]"  
His stare fixes on the signing limb for a few seconds, stuck in the last vowel; his forehead goes taut and wobbly, his dedication to getting it just right apparent. Then it relaxes, and he slowly raises the finger to his right--  
"[No, Lilo, that's the pinky. That's not a sign. Try the other side.]"  
Quickly, he switches over, looking away from it, towards the cloth.  
"[It's all right, no need to be ashamed. There's a lot of movements to remember, it's natural to get a few mixed up. Remember: it should look like a small D when it's facing you. I think you can do that.]"

His sort-of-fingers go back and forth between the two at rapid speed as she consoles him. Is he checking, or stretching out the mitten, or making sure they're still there? She wonders that sort of thing, about what he's really thinking, most of the time. That, in part, is why this is so critical. Communication leads to safety. It leads to more open routes to get him the help he needs.  
Someone with no way to talk, surrounded by people, is more alone than one in solitude. She remembers hearing that a lot in her youth.

A tapping resounds on her side - oh dear! She's gotten caught in her thoughts. Spieler finds the source to be Lilo, already making the next sign she was going to ask for. First and fifth digits out, making the half-consonant Y.  
Clever, clever Lilo.

"[G-great! That's great! That's just what I was gonna say next.]" She flusters to get herself back in the groove. "[Now, you already know L and O. Can you put those all together for me please?]"  
Faster than ever, he is on the case. Circle hand and index up, index down, up and thumb, repeat, thumb and pinky. D-O-L-L-Y.  
"[That's perfect, Lilo. Well done again!]"

With that complete, he gives her a peculiar look, at her own translators wrapped around each other. It's as if he is asking, what or who next? And she knows who. But not yet. It'll be a name he's never heard before.  
It might not even be today. It all depends on how her next patient reacts, and how easy or hard it'll be to prepare everyone.  
But sooner or later, the truth will have to out.

***

**13:23 PM**

With Dolly resolutely holding on to the upper half of her sock and none of her speech, it initially seems that **nothing** will out today, let alone the truth.

"Dolly, I really don't want to keep pressuring you like this, but I'm worried about you," Spieler says for the hundredth time, give or take a handful. She's tried to get her to say something, even only a small thing, since she came in, but she hasn't made a single solitary sound, except the shuffling that comes from putting her "magic" protection ever closer to her face. English, German, the few languages she really knows... None of them work.  
The sheep just shrinks slightly into herself.

She sighs, then tries a new variation of a tactic that equally failed a few days ago. Thankfully, therapy-competence wise, she's on a roll. No screw-ups at all right now.  
"Listen, I'm not getting on to you for hiding in yourself. I'm not! I understand how stressful everything's been for you recently. And with what you managed to remember of when the..." She trails off before her mouth leads her onto the sore spot. "It takes time to recover from a memory like that, and you can have that time, by all means. You can take three weeks to try and cope with it, as you, well, have done. You can take another **eight** weeks if you feel like it."  
Her charge vaguely wiggles in her spot, on her stomach.  
"But you don't have to do it alone, is what I'm saying. Technically, you're not anyway, but still. ...You know what your not talking to anyone is telling me?"  
A minute gesture to one side, then the other.  
"It's telling me that you're having trouble coping. And if any patient is struggling with that or with anything else, it's my job to help them. Will you please let me help you, as best as I can?"

Not even a physical reaction this time, just a forlorn glance into a place unknown, and Spieler is up against yet another roadblock.  
Before she can stop her mind from vocalizing it, she thinks, _[God, no more silence please, can't take much more silence today.]_ It sounds horrible to her now that it's rung through, but with the aid of these three mimes in a row, and of no Nadel to help matters, the damage is already done - in process of being done, rather.

"What is this even about, Dolly?" asks the therapist in increasing fear of retread. " **Is** this about what happened to you? Is it because you don't want to remember it?"  
A twitch of the eyes. What does that mean? 'That's a part of it'? A laconic Dolly has always been difficult to read.  
"Is it, is it what's been happening now? Because I promise, I'm going to protect you from that too. I'm not gonna let anyone else--"  
A similar flickering, hooves tensing. Wrong path altogether. Then what is it? What is her ball-gag?

"Is... Is this about Lyall?"

The very utterance of that final word seems to flip a switch in the atmosphere, and in the ewe herself. Her wool bristles on end, if only for the blink of an eye, and her own widen in shock, alarm, recognition. Seemingly on instinct, she reaches for her zip.

...Eureka.

"It is, isn't it?" Spieler proceeds carefully. "What about Lyall is making you go all quiet? Are you trying not to talk to Lyall?"  
This time the shake of the head is more emphatic.  
"So you _are_ talking to it?" A soft growling erupts from all corners of the room, and she changes her tune. "Sorry, I mean zer. English pronouns, forgot. You're talking to zer, in your head?"  
A nod; she readjusts the scrap of sock again.

"Okay, good. That makes a difference. ...Okay. Are you scared that if you talk to anyone else," the pursuit continues, "Lyall will come out again?"  
Yes.  
"In what way? That it- ze'll come out of your stomach?"  
No, this time.  
"Oh - that ze'll actually take over you? Like ze did before?"  
She's got it. At long last, she's got it.

Frankly, the relief that the problem is that simple is palpable in her chest and core.  
"All right. I can see how that's a legit worry," she begins. "But we've had Lyall out here before, haven't we? Before you stopped speaking. And ze didn't take over your body in those times. Not after ze found out how uncomfortable and scary that is for you. Ze wouldn't come out without your say-so, otherwise ze would have by now. And... honestly, I think you know that, deep down. Because you're talking to zer on the inside to make sure ze stays there. Does that make sense?"  
She nods again, if hesitantly, pupils full of doubt.

"I'm glad. So you don't have to worry about saying anything anymore. Which is good, because, you know... With everything that's going on right now, we need as much sound as we can get. I think we all do, to make sure everyone else is still alive and innocent and--"  
The last word slips out before she can think about it. _[Shit.]_

It is the final instigator.

"You 'hink one ay us lot did it."

A new voice fills the room, scratchy and resigned and accusatory all at once. It's been so long, so underused, that until she spots the sheep's eyes boring at her own, Spieler doesn't link the words to her.  
"No no no, Dolly! No one's saying that at all," she tries to correct.

"Y' were thinkin' it. They aw ur, they jist dornt want t' admit it any mair than I did. That's what's got us so scared, I suppose. It's bad enaw lookin' oot fur whit ye dornt ken or cannae see an' tryin' t' save a' fowk from 'at, but 'en y-" A cough or two, to get rid of the creeping raspiness. "-'en ye have t' start lookin' oot fur th' look-oots. Ye humans, th' therapists, all of us, anyain coold've dain it ur hae it dain _to_ them ur whatever, an' ye start gettin' scared fur th' awreddy deid, th' still alive, th' dyin', th' survivin', whit it must feel like, hoo ye cannae cope, hoo th'- th'-"  
Dolly stutters to a halt, turns away, forms a ball. Clearly overwhelmed by how much surged out of her just now.

"...you feel better now, Dolly?"

"Nae particularly," she says, partly into herself. "Sorry. Aam jist afraid. An' I am so - goddamn - **sick** \- ay bein' afraid."

_[Aren't we all, little lamb.]_

***

**13:32 PM**

Dolly hasn't said a whole lot since then. She's returned to a taciturn state fairly quickly, if anything. Nonetheless, further steps towards her closure have been made: through a bit of back and forth between her and her alter, Spieler did get permission for Kroko and Lilo to be made aware of Lyall's presence, for everyone's benefit, and they'll go about that properly later today.  
But though she no longer sits on that bed, replaced with Lilo going over a page further on in the book (and the names he has learned so far, unconsciously), something she said has stuck. It's burrowed deep into the forefront of her mind, and raises too good of a point to ignore.

"Anyone of us could've done it".  
Since Wood's death, she and her coworker have assumed that this V, this omnipresent omen in every slice of darkness, was someone from the outside. A malicious human, perhaps, retaliating against the news after seeing Tagesschau's report, murdering other toys to stop their own never returning. It was the only explanation that made sense.  
In its own way, it still is. The idea of V not being from out there, but from in here - asylum inhabitants killing their kin - never occurred to them for a reason, and is refusing to fit reality now.

The whole situation was just too surreal to begin with. But this? Playthings holding the knife, the axe, the pins... Nadel, calm supportive nurse, holding secret malevolent intent... Everyone being a suspect for the crime in each other's eyes: that's the worst aspect of all. And no one possesses a method of proving for sure one toy or person is responsible or another, so word of mouth will be all they have to go on.  
Dolly insinuating towards Kroko. Kroko in turn accusing Lilo. Lilo pointing the newly-formed finger at Spieler herself. (She knows she isn't behind either of these attacks, unless her mind has suppressed her involvement; but he may not be as idealistic, swept in the tide of blame.) Then who would anyone have left to plead their innocence to?

_[No, damnit!]_ her mind shouts to the void. _[No one's calling **anyone** guilty or not! It can't be any of us. It's impossible. Incomprehensible.]_  
...So, too, was their dying at all until about a week ago.

She rubs her forehead, trying to pinch out those thoughts stained with treason. She can't get bogged down in this right now. She won't even mention it to anyone.  
At the moment, a carefully-treading student needs her attention and testing. Gotta focus on that.

"[All right. You've been learning very quickly, Lilo,]" she starts up again to get him looking at her. "[You've pretty much got this down actually. So what do you say we do a test? See how well you remember things without that book? I think you can pull that off, don't you?]"  
He flips it closed and pushes it away from him, clearing space. He seems willing enough.  
"[Great! Okay, without cheating: who is in this building? What are their names?]"

Lilo blinks a few times, staring at his right hand, flexing it.  
"[There's no rush. Be accurate, not fast.]"  
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, he starts signing properly. First name, his own, as natural as ever: L-I-L-O. She nods encouragingly.  
D-O-L-L-Y. "[Well done, you're doing fine.]"  
L-Y-A-L-L, the A made by curling the top of the palm at rest. Yup.  
A slightly skewiff twisting of the partial-fingers for K, crossed ones for the R, O-a more concrete K-O. "[You stumbled a bit there, but you got it right!]" she says. "[Who else is in here?]"

A clenched fist with overlapping thumb for the S. S-L-Y.

She didn't think her heart, or any of her internal organs, could ache much more, but they do.  
"[I know, Lilo. I miss him too.]"

***

**14:11 PM**

Her list has ended.  
Lilo is out in the lounge, as he has been intermittently all day - what choice does he have? - and there is no one left to supercede him. She's been waiting for ten minutes, and for whom?

Not those she has already done, wondering and preparing respectively. Not Dr Wood, protector of the office, master of the mind. Not Dub, trapped in a bubble of everything up until the last breath. Especially not Sly.  
Three, no, four are out there. Three are in the back room, adjacent to her therapy couch. It was her idea alone to put them there. She's not even sure that anyone else knows it exists. If she so chooses, or if their mournful siren song calls to her, she can abandon the world of the living and look at them now, as she's done every day since the first.  
With the cold reminders still cracking every artery in two no matter how much she tries to hide it, she might not have a choice this time.

Mechanically, she rises, turns to the stone-cold door behind which they lie, and pushes it open.

The late daytime of the bulbs above her cuts through the inky evening consuming the inside of that place. The only things that stop it being night, what aids her sight as the door closes behind her, are the false embers of electric candles, gold and white shades flickering in the dipped pots of wax. (Even with their protection, she can't risk a naked flame; besides, they will last for as long as she wishes them to.)  
These lights mark the upper edges of the three flattened tables that dot the floor. In the middle of each one, glass boxes lie, unfogged but for the reflections of themselves caused by their yellow caging. It is in there that they go into their eternal slumber, snake and raven and turtle all. Her horrifyingly serene impossibilities.

She goes to Dub first, on instinct, and because he is furthest away. The deeper in she goes, the less likely she is to leave. His eyes are still closed from when someone - probably Lilo or Dolly - moved the lids back down, and he's in a more comfortable position, on his side, recovering. She prays for his limbs to twitch and shake, to prove the sleep disorder, to show some sign of awareness...  
 _[You'd think I'd know better,]_ she muses as he doesn't.

Dr Wood next, a further betrayal of everything she used to believe. He is, for the most part, restored. Once she'd calmed the others down that fateful day, she'd gone back into what was once his office with the restocked first aid kit. She'd taken out the last of the old box of needles, fed it with thread, and stitched his head back onto those burdened shoulders. The train of logic, she believes she told herself in the initial panic, was that if he was put back together, he could come back, it wasn't like with Sly, he could start breathing again if she reattached it, please breathe again, **please**.  
Not only did she truly learn in the doctorless aftermath that death's culling is irreversible; but she ended up leaving the bag open, new carton exposed, and thus sealed the fate of the reaper's next target.

All three were her fault, in one way or another. Particularly the reptile's, stretched out in the longest case and surrounded by the most artificial light. He's on his back, straightened from head to tail. She can't see his pupils, but she knows they will never grow and shrink again. That tongue, flopped at the side, will never slither again, for harm or good. He will never feel the triumph of being restored to full mental health, or the touch of a new owner, or the love that was supposed to keep him going until the Earth faded to ashes.  
Just the opposite, in fact. Displayed like this, caught in a Snow White coffin, he looks as though he was never alive in the first place. The centrepiece of a toy shop or a valuable component of a museum; not a patient with thought and emotion and soul, not a companion in childhood and beyond.

And it's _her doing_. Both the bird's memory and her own voice tell her so. Her panic. Her ignorance. Her mistake.  
Hers. Hers. **Hers.**

Her hand lands on the smooth surface, palm spread, and it's all that she can do to keep back a sob.

Death is a part of life, just as vice versa. These facts cannot be reconciled. That doesn't stop it from hurting when it happens, throbbing deep in the gut and other places of one's psyche that one can't reach.

This is why she carries on, despite it all. Why she can only be in here a while longer.  
It is so that she can comfort those who carry that feeling now, all the time. It is so that she can distract herself from the oblivion that plagues her, that has done since the first last time he closed his eyes.  
Above all, it is so that she doesn't have to set up any more resting places for broken spirits.

***

**15:30 PM**

"[Let me just make sure you've got them all. ...What is your name?]"  
L-I-L-O. Signed as easily as if he had learned the language a week ago.

"[Who is here with you, Lilo?]"  
A string of units, K-R-O-K-O-D-O-L-L-Y-L-Y-A-L-L. For all his haste in spelling out what he's yearned to say, he hasn't fully worked out he has to space yet.

"[Is there anyone else? Who takes care of you?]" It's baiting for names he uses less often, but she believes in him.  
Indeed, he only stumbles for a second. D-R-S-P-I-E-L-E-R, he points at her before continuing, N-A-D-E-L. (Alexis, and - as she finally found out from her earlier - _Katrina_. A lovely name, if a tad quaint.)

"[Yes, that's us. I'm Dr Spieler, and Nadel's out there,]" she says gently. "[...Is there anyone missing? Do you know?]" Who lies in that transparent room?  
S-L-Y. Now he does remember to pause. D-R, W-O-O-D. D, come on, what are those last two, he can do this, U-B.  
"[That's fantastic, Lilo. You got them all. You're really very good at this!]"

Having run out of questions to ask to test his knowledge, Spieler lapses into concentration. It's on nothing too distressing, for once - despite the memories and blame it reared back, being in that room has calmed her as usual, if only for a moment. Instead, she ruminates on sheep and crocodiles and hippopotami, and how well they will (and do) react to the implication, silhouette, presence of the wolf.  
As a result, this time she doesn't have to be roused out of it by force to see Lilo manipulating his hand once more. She wouldn't have to be, anyway; he's forming new combinations. He hasn't tried those ones before... what is he saying now? A curve for C, a two-'finger'ed-point for H, R, O...

E-R-S-C-H-R-O-C-K-E-N!  
Her spirits try to leap - he's starting the conversation, just as she thought this would do! - but it's marred by the sentiment of the word and the worry and fear dancing behind his eyes.  
"[You're scared, Lilo?]" she asks, to confirm to him that he got that right. "[Do you know what you're scared of? Can you tell me?]" She knows, she damn well knows, but she needs to pursue this, or he won't do it again.  
A single letter after the mass of them, the obvious two digits to show the V.

"[Everyone's scared of V. I'm a human adult, and **I'm** scared of V. All we can do is hope that they won't come back. And I don't think they will.]"  
...W-A-H-R-H--  
"[All right, I _pray_ they won't,]" corrects Spieler before the smarty pants can finish. "[And Nurse Nadel and I, we're doing all we can to make sure those prayers come true. And it has to be working. After all, we're still here. And so are you. And in the end--]"

He holds a hand up to stop her, so she does, hanging on tenterhooks for the next movement. Then, through seven signs and a dead set expression, the previously uncommunicating hippo says I-C-H L-E-B-E.

What a clever toy he is.  
Clever, clever,  
curious, world-shattering,  
linguistic, living  
L-I-L-O.


	5. Let the Only Sound Be the Overflow

The finger alphabet.  
All of these weeks in the institution, locked in an overwhelming black and white silence, and you never thought of the finger alphabet?!

It seemed pointless at first. Surely such sign language is A) for those with the eponymous digits and B) for the deaf, not the mute, you remember feeling merely this morning. And if no one else knows it, how would it help? But even then, in hindsight, your initial uncertainty was quite - not silly, but not sensible either.  
Fingers could be made, and have. You wiggle your right hand now, and it feels sort of sore along the tip; though there are no gaps, you can still detect a degree of separation, expansion, available to you at any point. In your mind, you are akin to the very first frog or bird or whichever animal to have webbed toes, on the cusp of a new, beneficial evolution.  
And, as Spieler has more than proven, it doesn't matter if one can hear without talking, or this in reverse, or do both. Going by the Albert-Berta-Cäsar route alone, anyone can take advantage of the solution so basic, so easy, that only her predecessor thought of it. You can sign, they can read, they can speak, you can listen, in a fit of give and take.

What held you back was a deep-rooted resistance to change. It's as simple as that.

...But is that really so surprising, given how much _has_ changed? The therapist can dress it up as making as much progress as everyone else all she wants, but no one can truly distract from the threat of disappearing, of another strike from V, in the end.

Your reflexive breathing check kicks in again to let the fear flow away, though for the past three days it's had no words attached to it. (That's not quite true. Once, yestereve, 'in out' crept up on you as you tried, and underneath you the floor turned a dream-like shade of virescent and your right arm tensed close to your chest to stop it lashing out and you ended up having to recover in a corner until bedtime left you no choice in the matter.) When you're steady, you move to the more recent addendum: counting, counting, re-counting again. There are no chances left to take.  
There's you, out in the middle of the lounge, at a respectable distance from the areas the dead used to walk... which is sadly getting to be most of the floor at this point. There's Kroko, on the borderline between Dub's spot and his own, lethargic on a crushed box of tissues. You start waving to him gingerly; he doesn't wave back, so you let him be. Drowning in grief deeper than hitherto seen from him can take its toll.  
The only one missing from the room is Dolly, and you might have a pretty good idea of where she is.

That's a lie as well. To call Dolly "one", not "two", implies that **ze** doesn't exist, that the beams of light through reality's dark corners haven't come thick and fast today.  
 _"[There's another name I'd like you to learn now, Lilo,]"_ memory-Spieler says to kick off your third session, as obviously rehearsed here as then. _"[You won't have heard it or seen it - zer before; we're going to set that up for later. Ze's been around for quite a long time, inside Dolly, and ze'd like to feel welcome, so... It's Lyall. L-Y-A-L-L,]"_ it breaks off, echoed by your hand moving to spell it for nobody.

It's a minor rewrite of the world you thought you knew in the grand scheme of things, really - a toy inside another toy, formless and invisible until set free - but it taunts you just the same, setting the hedgehog off yet again. The status quo of six was never such, not in the way you believed it to be. No, the churning burning seven was the total all along, uncomfortably slanted. One extra to add to the three now as well...

Three. One. Five-six-seven. Side by side, frostbiting to isolated to nausea-inducing, their faults clear. Three, one, seven. Exchanging.  
One, three--

"[Hey. You okay there?]"  
\--three, four, four and three in one body. Here they must be, for the sound in your ear now is new to you, quelling your stomach with amber and greyish pink marbling together, the colour and twist of the brain.  
You look for the speaker, and you get the first to match, within the eyes staring intensely at yours. They belong to a semi-large, lope-legged lupus, covered in various shades of brown fur that seem to have no order to them whatsoever. The tail, next to be found, is the sole exception, circling in a very specific rhythm. Round and round, never ceasing, much like the snake set on its path...

The canine talks at you again before the reminder can get more than one sneak attack: "[Not butting in, am I? Doc told me to come out and say hi to everyone, and I figured I might as well, nothing better to do anyway. But I can take off if you're busy?]"  
That cements it as definitely who you thought it was. You shake your head to say 'not at all'.  
"[Great, thanks. That's two to one wanting me to stick around.]" Lyall sits down to your right, the swooshing fabric undeterred by the change from air to floor.

After half a minute of stagnation, ze prods your side with a semi-sharp claw. "[Not much of a talker, are you? Let me guess - you're Lilo?]"  
This is what you've been preparing for all day. You raise your talking mitten, prepare it, and sign your name.  
"[Yup, called it. She said you'd be using that weird finger-spelling stuff. I'm betting you know who I am too.]"  
It takes little effort to 'say' L-Y-A-L-L as before.  
"[Geez, you're good!]" ze jokes, or you think ze does. "[Yeah, I'm Lyall. The doc says that I'm Dolly as well, or Doll is me, or whatever, but I wouldn't worry about that. I'm not! Never been good at that whole you-are-me philosophy crap.]"  
You find the strength to smile again, despite yourself. Today's been generous in that department.

"[So. It's just us lot then.]" Ze's staring out into the blue and white and empty, sending your happiness swerving away. "[You, me, Doll, and - that's Kroko over there, right? Yeah, must be. ...That's all there is. Just us.]"  
You don't move, but you hope your sentiment is clear. Yes, Lyall, indeed.  
It appears to work, as ze then sighs and turns back to you. "[Doll told me what's happened the past few days. Well, sort of. She sees what's going on, and I pick up on it. And. I dunno why I feel so bad about it - it's not like I _knew_ them, not really, since we both - part of me thinks this is on her behalf, what I'm.]" Zer words stumble to a halt, uncertainty shining through, before ze starts again. "[Look, what I'm saying is, I'm sorry, all right? About all this.]"

The outburst throws concern over you like a thick wet blanket. Apologizing for feelings they caused or inconveniences you understand, but why would anyone do so for what can't possibly be their fault? ...Unless that's exactly what ze's implying...  
An unthinkable question resounds in your head, forms shapes and sentences, which you're translating before you realize it. H-A-S-T D-U, pause, S-I-E T-O- no - T, what was the O with the umlaut again?  
"[ **God** no,]" ze spits out to save you from being stuck. "[You think I kil-- **No!** I wouldn't. We couldn't. That's not what it's for, anyway. It's just that...]" The previous firmness fades. "[I know what it's like. Like, everyone you know going, sometimes irreversibly - I've almost been where you have, not exactly, but pretty much. And it hurts. I know it does. I was saying sorry for you feeling like that. That's all.]"

This only makes you partially feel better, the dread replaced with a surge of unexpected empathy. You'd want to do something to comfort zer, pet zer on the back, perhaps, if calling that risky wasn't understating it. Instead, you sign out your own apology, focusing on looking sincere when you do it.  
Ze delivers a mouth-twitch of zer own. "[Thanks, Lilo. ...I'd better go tell Kroko what I just told you,]" ze changes the subject, pulling zerself back to zer feet. "[But look, if you wanna tal-- well, not talk, but whatever it is you've been doing. If you want me to listen, just pull on this--]" a point towards the zip running along the stomach, up to the arch of zer neck - "[and I'll come on out, see if there isn't something I can do.]"

There's something now, if you're true to yourself. This new partner in conversation (and the fact you can have them to begin with) might be a change, drastic and stark against the memory, but at least it's positive compared to the one that set this all off. You don't want this one reverted, _in_ verted.

You ask zer, as steadily as you can, to [please stay].  
"[I'll do my best.]"

***

The lines between afternoon and night and morning, so defined before, have been getting fuzzier and fuzzier as of late. The floor has emptied of all beings except you long before you realize that the lights are going off and you're being asked politely to head to bed for your own good. Your mind being constantly stuck in first dusk, then dawn, then perpetual dusk again can have that effect on you.

Sly's loosely-translated form is not waiting for you on top of any of the covers as you lever yourself underneath them. He hasn't appeared as often since Dub died, and you're not sure whether this is good for you or not, emotions as contorted as they are. He made a very brief cameo earlier today, summoned by you putting together his name with your growing hands; two days before, too, gave him a glimpse to ward you off of returning to the ex-doctor's office, on the grounds that [you could get yelled at]; otherwise, there has been no sign of this imitation of life.  
You suppose even hallucinogenic ghosts have their limits.

Still, this _is_ the third day in a row where you have not encountered the fading bodies they leave behind (if not the start of the third batch of twenty-four hours - again, it's been difficult to keep a handle on which is when). Relief is pumping through you about that; you've seen enough of those to last a lifetime. Mutilated. Decapitated. The corpse of the instigator of the whole thing, you don't remember seeing, even for the funeral that everyone held for him. But you're sure it would look much the same as when he spoke his last words, knotted around the midsection and paling at each end, twitching occasionally from the onset of -  
No, it's no good. You still don't want to think about what fate had in store for him that warm unassuming noon. You cast around for something else to work out, to distract you from it all, and end up on the number three yet again. Why will that number not cease to follow you around? Three guessed to be left, three subtracted from the old, three members of staff before Spieler came along, three unique letters in your name, three days of reprieve now, three...

...Wait. It was three days after Sly's life was cut so startlingly short that V began laying their claims, wasn't it?  
You take a moment to not be at all surprised that the number with a frozen edge to it has led you all the way back to the morbid places you were fleeing from, then try out some mental arithmetic. 1:30 onwards, one group gathering outside his bed to weep come morning, again, again. Yes, it was during the third night after the initial reminiscence that Dr Wood was lost. Just over a full rotation later, the turtle was also gone. Now you are somewhere in the final stage of a second trio. A semblance of pattern recognition, of zero, three, one, three. More godforsaken numbers, with a culling between each one.  
Which means - and you realize this with a jolt in your heart - that unless the connecting theme is that there is none, that you were barking up the wrong tree all this time, you are all dangerously close to the meat between the bread, and it stinks of expiration.

With each second that passes, it looks more likely to you until you're certain of it. **V will strike again tonight.**

There's no way you can sleep after that. For the first time in a week or so, you don't particularly want to anyway. Instead, you get back on top of the covers and lie in wait, pretending. Your arms are held close for protection, a corner of the pillow for comfort, your feet coiled and ready to move at the first sign of trouble. After the first few minutes it really starts getting hard to hold the position, but you don't care; you freeze, you wait, searching for any ruffling off in the distant halls, any creak of the door you're staring at or of others.  
Whether it's you or your fellow targets they aim for, you need to be prepared. You've already caused one death, partially, by proxy. You will _not_ be responsible for any more through inaction.

A sound. A soft thump, coming from one of the rooms that surrounds you. A held breath on your part, followed by an unexpected flicker of vinyl-tile-creak through the cracks.  
It's V! It must be. You need to go quickly, get to them, stop them in their tracks. You swing your feet around, practically throw yourself off of the bed, rush to the door--

and halt moments before you can pry it open. You fool, thinking you could take on a potential serial killer with no weapon on hand! Now, what's the best thing to use? Cushion? No, that'd be too soft to be effectual. What about the plug that connects the bedside lamp to the wall? You head back to try and snap it off, but it's been taped firmly into the nearest socket, no chance to break it free. What about your blocks? They'd keep you company, and Nadel never did get around to softening those sharp corners, did she? Those might work, if they weren't on top of the same side table as the one source of light. You prepare yourself to scramble back onto the bed to make the long stretch to get them.

Then another thud, paler blue, either from the same room or the opposite; in your autistic direction-blind panic-torn mindset it's hard to tell. Are they both in jeopardy now? If so, you don't have time to faff about, just to slam yourself into the solid side a couple of times to shift the blocks along, off, into your awaiting hands, which you promptly do, and more promptly regret doing. Have you alerted the murderer to your presence by doing that? You tuck yourself away behind your sleeping place, a statue.

When the immediate has elapsed and it's clear they're not coming in to do horrible things to what scraps of survival you have left, you take the chance to emerge and step out, renewed, into the expanse of the corridor. Both Sly's and Dub's bedrooms, facing yours, are covered in the selfsame tape, no hints of interference with it. But checking to your right, you find that Kroko's door is ajar, peering into nothing. The other way only shows you a pointed shadow, close to the ground, disappearing from view as quickly as you glimpsed it. A familiar tail, or an invader's shoe? Dolly's door is shut, so she's got to be fine. One - two - hidden, one to seek and search and rescue.

...The second you make a wrong move, you'll be the one that needs it.

No, not now, you can't think like that. You shake off the fear that has cemented you still on the ground and take a few gradual steps to the corner you have to turn to get into reception. It's practically black out here, no lightbulbs in sight; you smack into a jutting edge at one point. It's understandable, given no one's expected a toy to be walking around at night on either side of the increased safety measures. With someone like V lurking behind every wall and inside every nightmare, why would anyone voluntarily leave their room? If it could, if you were secure, laughter would ripple through you from the irony of it.  
By the time you're past the first bend, the potential danger's already beyond the second - V's moving fast. Do they know you are trailing behind their every step? Or is it long, spindly legs that give them an advantage? Either way, you pick up speed, fleeing carefully but not too much on their path, until you're through the set of double doors that separates here and there.  
The outside that this area reveals is barely brighter than the inside, lit only by a distant lamppost and the orb that Sly occasionally fixed on in life as well as death. It doesn't help that, due to it not working, the TV where Nadel would normally be is off, though it does mean it's no longer speckling your nerves in the binary of empty speech. Still, it's enough to see the most distant of movements off to your north... or are you imagining those? Which way has Kroko been taken?

As though to answer your question, there's a sudden, incredibly vivid clattering from what's clearly the patient lounge, blinding you with its intensity. A signal? A warning? A trap? Or just a frightened creature making all the noise he can to call for help?  
You stumble through your disorientation to the source of the sound, tread by clumsy tread, puzzle held like a shield, praying to the several museum-kept cuddly toys coming to mind that you're not too late. With a crash, you're in...

...and the room is clear. Devoid of polyester, of a scuffle. In fact, all you can see is Dr Spieler raising herself from the floor, flanked by her trusty torch and - is that a chunky, cracking-spine book?

Hoping that her appearance here is coincidence, you approach her quickly and see to pulling the tome back to its regular orientation for her. When she spots you doing so, she gives a sheepish, if distracted, smile.  
"[Thanks, Lilo. Sorry. That thing's heavier than it looks, but I needed something to defend - Wait a minute!]" she whispers, your presence having hit her. "[Lilo, what are you doing up? It's past your bedtime.]"  
As she retrieves what she's dropped, one item in each hand, you sign to her, trying to remember anew which gesture goes where. V-E-R-L-E-T-Z-T, K-L-I-N-G.  
"[Ah. You heard that too then.]" Her face falls. "[I thought it was just Nadel trying to fix the security cameras, but I took these to be on the safe side... Looks like I **did** need them. Where'd they come from?]"  
You point, first to where you estimate the bedrooms to be from here, then tracing a path to the nurse's station and past it. Your legs are already taking you back to the door; red herrings here, no time to waste, someone could still **die**.

She, too, picks up on your urgency. "[You don't think it's V, do you?]" A simple nod from you this time; she swears violently in response. "[Let's go!]"

The two of you backtrack into where you previously stood, but by the time you get there, any vestige of action has faded out. No flicker of anything except the focused beam moving from side to side. No sound at all.  
"[Are you sure they came this way?]" Spieler asks. "[You don't think they went back?]"  
Even as you affirm it, doubts begin skittering under your skin. You can't have made up the whole thing; but what if, by being distracted, you've left them room to pull the wool over your eyes? You try to stabilize yourself with a calming grip, but in your haste, you've abandoned your blocks, and to go back for them would only waste more time better spent saving the--

No. There IS some noise. You've just picked up on it. It's distant, fluctuating in the background, but it's there. You raise a hand to silence any interruptions, move to the other side of the desk. It turns louder for its trouble. Clearer. A slow, constant rhythm, weaving around its own consistency. Almost like...

Your heart lodges in your throat.  
"[Lilo, what's wrong?]"  
Facing the therapist, you pass on what you're certain you're hearing: W-A-S-S-E-R.

And in another instant, both of you are moving again, the institution flowing until you're at a door you've rarely seen. There's a plaque at the human's eye level that reads [Staff Kitchen], so there's small wonder. The rushing is only getting louder now, and, unless it's just negative anticipation on your part, the floor under your feet feels slightly damp.  
There's a whirlwind of navy and white that tells you Nurse Nadel is now on the scene. With no explanation needed for her, she rattles at the doorknob with all her might. When that has no effect, she steadies herself and delivers a sharp kick to just above it, then another, her heel splintering the edge enough that all three of you can then pour toward it, inward, nearly onto each other.

And onto the scene of a crime long since committed.

Water pools along the slippery tiles of the illuminated ground, a dream-like shade of virescent, the beginnings of a moss-splattered lake. Counters rise from its forming depths, abandoned islands in the mist. A waterfall cascades down in front of a set of drawers, which your eyes follow in reverse to locate a sink. You're lifted up, clasped protectively to someone's chest, to see that the cold tap is on full force, its partner spitting occasionally from its open mouth.

Kroko floats inside. He's facing down, swollen, his nose contorted to a horrible offset angle. All of his skin, top to bottom, is darker than usual, and matted. At least one of his eyes is bulging, looking right into yours, no, past yours, at the ceiling behind you. He's clogged. Unmoving.

Drowned.

Someone whispers no, shouts no, screams no. You can't tell if it's Spieler, Nadel, or the hard-to-access voice of your own mind, regressing into denial. It's impossible to place anything in the pinpoint, the severed string between you and him, that all has become.  
If you were but a few seconds earlier, you could have saved him. There would have been no need for an adult to cut off the flood, to remove him, limp and dripping, from his grave pit, to try and fail to offset the inevitable.  
But you were not. And there's only a few left - you, Dolly, Lyall, the staff - to suffer for it.

It's only the sound of the same distant speaker reading out yet another note, in a near monotone, that shakes you out. That, and a loud splash from below. By this time, the last toy has moved into the room while you weren't looking, in sheep form, dishevelled from waking up. She too has been sucker-punched by the sight, as apparent from her being sprawled back, the water dripping from her like something more repugnant.

> _[Death is easier to bear than life. No agony. No betrayals._   
>  _I'm helping them face their fears AND making sure they_   
>  _have none again. Is it not decent to halt life if it means_   
>  _halting the pain they go through? If I am not to be Death's_   
>  _plaything, let me instead be its angel._   
>  _\- V]_

The words, the meaning, ring harsh against you both, but they seem to affect the therapist differently. You're placed down beside Dolly - she must have been the one holding you - and made to watch as she approaches to trace them for herself.

"[Nadel? Do you think. Do you think anyone knew about his - Kroko?]" she asks eventually, grey in the question's veins.  
"[On the outside? I doubt it. Only us and Kindermann. And he can't...]"  
"[You're right, he can't. We had to Skype with him after it - anyway, he wouldn't.]"  
"[...Spieler, what are you implying?]"

She whispers something into the other's ear, something you're pretty sure you'd know if it were aloud. Kroko came here alone. No one waited for him. His aquaphobia wasn't something that could be tested, proven time after time, in the real world. If the only people aware of it were behind these walls... And if V, in turn, knew...

The gap between proposal and situation is closed, not with a click, but the clash of a steel blockade against its limiting frame.  
You and Dolly turn to each other, just for a second. One by one, you then turn to look at Dr Spieler and Nurse Nadel, to spy the potential knives they could be hiding behind their backs.

And they, in turn, cast the same look to you.


	6. Keep Me High Til I Tear the Walls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Psst. In case you missed it, it's about here that [Song for a Scribbled Down Name](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1703915) is placed in the Dark!Verse reading order. If you want to check that out before reading the chapter below and discovering part of the truth of the matter, now would be a good time to do so. It's Kroko/Dub and, for a Dark!Verse fic, pretty cute. You're gonna need that cuteness safety net for what lies ahead.)

Pink and red and green and null. These are the colours of the place you're in. Your particular surroundings may not be to look at, one once-reassuring slab of paint contrasted against another, but they seep through all the same, muted struggles from the other side to aid Spieler's own in keeping you inside the bed.  
The psychiatric clinic is well designed in all respects but one: its walls are thin when they need the least to be.

"[Lilo, please don't fight back like that,]" the therapist warns, her hands pulling the layers so close to you that it's more cutlass than counterpane. "[I have to keep you in here for right now. It's for your protection.]"  
Your right arm wrenches free and signs out the root of your concern. P-U-Z-Z-L-E.  
"[I know, you left your puzzle behind, but you need to be safe more than it does, so can you go without it just for tonight?]"  
No, you can't, not in order to be safe in the first place. It's your security, your lifeblood, more so than ever before. P-U-Z-Z-L-E.

"[We can't go get it right now, Lilo!]" She's struggling not to shout through the unnoticed fog of sound and the now blazing cabinet lamp. "[We've had to put this whole building under lockdown. That means you two - three as well. We still haven't got our cameras back so I'll have to-- Kroko's just been **killed** ,]" and the waking nightmare of minutes back flashes anew, sears, her words making it all the more real, "[and we don't know if V's planning to come back and try to pick off another one of us. We don't know if they're hiding, where they're hiding, we don't know who they are, we don't... we don't know. We only know that we can't let you go charging into danger just to get your blocks back. You were really clever today, Lilo, this shouldn't be a hard concept!]"

As she talks, your fight slowly flickers out... in part, because you're noticing the increasing bags behind glasses to hold errant sleep dust, the night-worn wrinkles gathering at her brow, the blend of concern and uncertainty and simple tiredness, for the first time. In this harsh light, it makes an already difficult argument all the more so. You have been burden enough today, in theorem.  
Yet - and this may or may not be more selfishness on your part - you can't suppress this sense, unexplainable though it is, that if you can just have it by you, on the side, your wooden grain in reach, 'don't know' will become 'know they won't' and there'll be no more fatalities, no more still silent ever-staring shells of anyone, and everything will come closer to all right. One more of many feelings with no name.  
You ask for it once again, more delicately this time.

She lets loose a sigh, though you're not sure if she meant to. "[I know. I promise you, if we all make it to tomorrow morning, you can get it back then. It's just dangerous to be out there tonight. Especially since we all...]"  
A break off. A wait for the unsaid. A hint of gold joins the distant fray.  
Then suddenly: "[Lilo, all of us are suspects now.]" You nod. You knew that much already. "[V can't just be a threat from the outside anymore. Nurse Nadel could be - well - in secret. I could be; I know I'm not, but no one else does. So could Lyall.]"  
She looks into you, and despite dreading what's coming, you don't glance away.  
"[So could you. You could be using your blocks as an excuse to. Finish the job. That's why we need to look out for you. Either you and anyone else could be in danger from V. Or anyone else could be in danger from you. You understand?]"

Exactly three things choose to deafen at once. First, your hands, gradual fingers and all, lock up. They scream, from deep within, your eyes scream, straining, you scream with the desire to spell out [INNOCENT].  
Second, the knowledge that this isn't strictly true is louder.  
Third and unexpected even by your standards, just-caught words manage to break through the wall and silence all but these, in Dolly's voice. _"[But I **didn't do it!!** ]"_

The aftermath rings and rings for what seems like forever.  
"[...I'm sorry,]" Spieler softly says, finally peeling herself from the bed and away. "[But we just don't know that for sure.]"

**

Your earlier tactic for staying awake worked too well. Even now, when you know there are drained faces watching over you for better or worse, you can't sleep, or dream. Another little irony.  
It's a mixture of stimuli that keeps you up like this. The bulb's glare, for one thing, settling into your sides so much that, if you tilt your head a touch to the right, you can see the hollownesses between tufts of stuffing at the backs of your eyes through their front. These abysses are swallowed by other absences, your hyper-awareness of them. That of her, contradicted with the awareness of her looking on you at all. That of your puzzle, your incomplete reassurance. That of him who you should be used to not seeing by now, given how long he's...  
What dwells the most, though, is the _presence_ \- what sunk into those that remained when you found Kroko, suffocated and dessicated. It's just as she said. V **must** be someone in this building...  
Mustn't they?

That's what's got you stuck. You've been trying for fifteen or thirty minutes at this point; maybe more, you've long since lost count. And you just can't reconcile anyone here with that which has pulled off such hideous cruelty over the past week. ...Or is it that you don't want to? After all, to have a sniper's crosshairs on your back is one thing; to have your fellow patient or psychoanalyst holding the rifle is quite another.  
You shake that particular image away, darting under the covers, and attempt one more time to bring your thoughts to reason. Surely the answer will come to you if you can just turn the gears and think.

Could it be Dr Spieler? No, of course not, you start to brush it off. She has never been seen anywhere around the bodies dug up, and she's seemed so devastated, and she simply couldn't... But it rebounds. What she told you between deaths crawls back with it, cracking, crashing, shutting off sight and noise. With this in mind, she is more than capable. She says herself she isn't, and she'd know her own actions, better than you know yours. But can you simply accept this as fact anymore? Could you ever?

And then there's Nurse Nadel. You know less about her, only intimate with her hands and arms - a cradle large enough to place at ease. Or strong enough to choke? She has the closer range to all except Dub, supposedly fixing those cameras (how long is that supposed to take, anyway?), but has not the convenience of ties to _that_ day. Is she as guilt-free as this implies, then? Or has Spieler become a perfect cat's paw for coworker and killer alike?

Who else? Dolly, maybe. Or Lyall. They are two and the same, after all. Their bodies differ, and one's speech has the hue of milk, the other's of honey, but both have the texture of something far deeper and rougher. You hear them in your head now, denials of seconds and hours ago. And certainly, it'd be more difficult for a toy to do anything than someone far larger, sharper, with better excuses. But it can't be denied that they are in the firing line - or rather, possibly on the wrong side of it. In this life-drained world, you can trust no one. Not Spieler. Not Lyall.

Far less yourself.  
You haven't been able to let the green field go, not after how it came surging back tonight. That's partly why you really don't want to drift away. Any moment, you could be dragged back into that scratchy brown, now black most likely, for retribution you hope you are nowhere near ready for.  
What if this flora, draining and drained both, sprung from seeds of truth? You have no murderous intent. You saw no reason for any of them to die. Yet... is not standing aside and letting someone fade away only a stepping stone towards forcing it on them? Your powerlessness is proof. Precedent.

Someone else would have had to step in for Kroko, however chilling that sounds. There's no contortion of chronology that can pin you directly to that. But he is only one. He is not the other two of three slaughtered in your sleep. Or the waking of your dream-strung self.  
And maybe, in parts of you cordoned off to all except this, you could be - were - driven to do things you shouldn't.

So you, caught in a tangle of quilt and guilt, are back where you started: everyone could be culpable, yet no one could possibly be. Who could know to work a vulnerable toy's weaknesses against them and act on it - who that is still alive? Who could be lying, and who could be telling the truth? Is more than one V something to be considered? If so, why would each go by the same alias? And who in Steiff's name would fit that telling tone of the most recent warning? Who could consider a dearth of self and body and consciousness _better_ than a long life, fearful or not, of setbacks surpassed and survived, for _everyone_? It's impossible, and chillingly possible, and, worse yet, believed.

You create fists around your ears and yank until it hurts. Nothing about this makes any **sense**.

[I worked that out a looong time ago, Lilo.]  
Sly's greeting, cutting through for the first time in a day or two, helps ease the soreness inside your psuedo-skull and out. It's a bad sign when the presence of someone long dead serves as your grounding point, you can't help but think. You manage to extract yourself from the pile you've become to see him, paled as ever, waiting for you.  
Your initial instinct is to bid him a handheld hello, just to prove to him that you can, but he speeds around you to nip that in the bud. [You don't have to sign stuff to me. I can hear the words, remember?] he points out, making you feel rather foolish. [And yeah, it might be it is. A bad sign, I mean. The being dead, not the... never mind that, aren't you gonna get your blocks back?]

It takes a few seconds to catch up with the rapid fire change of subject, but once you're there, you want to nod. Yes, all you'd need is them to restore what had first threatened to become status quo. But re-locating your head allows you to see the silhouette, lit from the wrong angle, of Spieler's unbroken waiting. You can't. Not with her and others waiting to strike.  
[Lilo, you're not gonna get to sleep if you don't have the things with you. And if you don't sleep you'll be overtired and if you're overtired then something might undo inside and you'll die even worse. You've gotta think about safety like she said to think.]  
But death lurks just as much out there... What of V? What of the identity that lies behind it?  
[Okay, so what if they are coming for a back attack? If they run into you while you're out there, you can just tell someone and they can phone the police or have a big fight or something,] Sly rebuffs, and it occurs to you that he's taking your own side, and you the opposite. It feels odd to have him read your lines better than you could have done. [So you get your stuff and the bad guy gets arrested. Everyone wins! 'Cept V, maybe. And whoever V is. ...Hey, if a V _is_ Spieler, it'd kind of be a bird with two stones, ja ja?]

Torn between sneaking out and burrowing away - between want and fear - you simply stay put. Impatience darts across Sly's face, and the shadows on the doctor's change too, and you have to compare the two side by side to see how well they match.  
But as quickly as you start, the snake seems to decide something for you. He speeds down and through the chair legs and off; unnoticed, of course. What impact he's going to have out there, a formless projection in a tactile world, you have no--

There's a sudden blend of the sound of something snapping and that of it falling, and for a moment ice cold sweeps over you and it's Kroko's capture all over again with even less room for you to save him, if there ever was room.  
But no. Rationality quickly takes over. It's too far away this time to be this - from reception again, perhaps. Familiarity strikes in Spieler herself, though, for she cautiously raises herself from the chair, grabs her torch, and, giving you one last look, ghosts towards it.

Two seconds later, Sly peers again around the wide, beckoning openness of the door. [Go get 'em, tiger.]

Wait - how did - he couldn't have - could he...?  
...  
Well, at any rate. No reason to leave important work undone. You slip, with a great effort, onto the floor and return to the boundary. This time, nothing physical can hold you back, only the darkness that seeps into light, promising a hidden refuge. Answers.  
With one, then two, anticipatory feet, you step over the threshold.

You cannot absorb your surroundings as you could before, tempted as you are to do so. To see a second door and its insides, breached and abandoned not through choice, would only serve to depress and delay. That's not something you can afford again.  
The same path as before guides you to what you most desire, but is somehow pulled, twisted, to take up even more stretches of nothing. It will not be long before your surveyor returns, and if she spots you, then danger will spiral out still further, whether she is behind V or not. So you slither, as he would. You hide. You smear and edge yourself along walls and corners, sucking in your gut all you can. Every rustle makes you freeze in place, every felt or heard step or breath passing by; but every second of leeway presses you on.  
...Knowing to bypass watchful enemies, and how... Isn't that the very way a murderer would think?

It's thanks to that knowledge that you make it back into reception with no one having found you. This time, the silence is absolute; the echo of rushing water is gone. You wonder briefly where Kroko's body has ended up. Is it still there, at the scene of the crime?  
Sly doesn't chime in, like you expected - in fact, he has not followed at all. He must have disappeared for this important task, leaving you to solitude.  
As before, and yet in such a different way, you enter the patient lounge to do what you have to. But as its entrance shuts behind you, you realize too late that what drew you in was a siren song in the truest sense. The blocks are gone, blue floor showing where they should be.  
More distractingly, Nurse Nadel is sprawled backwards, on the ground, in a lump.

No no _god_ no! You are by her side in an instant, scavenging her for any sign of motion, of awareness, of unconsciousness, _anything_ , just please don't let it be that, let her be okay...  
Fortunately, when you lift up one of her eyelids, the brown iris flickers underneath, and her stomach rises and falls, though very subtly. She's alive, one relief in a sea of ambiguity. Checking the back of her head, which takes half of your strength, shows bruising where the roots of her tied-back bun meet the neck. She must have been knocked into something, or down, or whatever would render the normally sturdy nurse prone like this.  
Was she keeping an eye on the last inhabitant when she was struck? Where are the others now, if not here - where is everything? Are they in danger? Is this act what Spieler heard?  
And the worst and most probable question of all: where is V now? At least you have eliminated one suspect. Nadel would have no grounds to knock out herself as a distraction... right?

Instructions speed through your mind, and you immediately latch on. This is far above your level, too much, too fast, you're sinking without them. Someone needs to know about this; this is the first step. The missing pieces can be dealt with afterwards.  
For the third time, you exit the place where so much harm has been done and sat through, and for the second, you lead yourself back to your right. The sensation of a pinched nerve stabs at your mind and eyes and heart, making it harder to hide. But as you reach the first door, that worry's half-negated; it smashes open, nearly sending you onto the opposite wall, and Spieler flashes in and out of your vision with the name 'Katrina', frost-white, on her lips.  
Though you still try to remain close to the edges of ground, for you can never be too careful, you do pick up the pace. The humans being gone doesn't mean that they won't return, disguised as the other things that are coming, closing in to one conclusion or the next.

The nearer the sanctuary of your bedroom becomes, the more something sounds wrong about it. Its glow beckons you back in to offset it, but you can hear. Clumps, shuffles, stacks, a soft hum, patterns without permanence, from a dark-souled intruder. You need to get back into bed and emerge from the night intact, you need to steer clear of whatever or whoever remains, and the first wins out, and the wood squeaks as you cross the line -

\- and stop. Cold.  
On one hand, you have found your blocks. On the other, they form part of a mass construction, as yet incomplete. But you can tell - are sure - that this is a weapon. The instrument for your demise.

And you've just stumbled on the one responsible.

V does not seem to notice you at first. Merely finishes off its base. Nudges something into place. Then catches your eye, as though knowing all the while that you would be there, and simply giving you the proper cue.

"[There you are. The wanderer, returned at last. Don't think I got her out of the way for your benefit alone. It's far easier to set something like this up without a simpering liar down my neck.]"  
You are in no shape to reply.  
"[It's funny. All I had to tell her was that she had been hurt - easy in itself, one right angle was all it took - and she effectively threw you to me. She calls it compassion. But what would she know about that?]"

Still nothing can form, or move. Even as V takes two steps forward, scanning you, you cannot go back. You cannot escape what lies ahead.  
"[Why are you staring, Lilo? Anyone would think I were betraying you instead of saving you. And I wouldn't do that. Who do you think I am?]"

You feel your muscles begin to unfurl in your right arm first. You clench, unclench. Bend slightly, more. And, in the impossible idea that it'd save your skin, you answer.  
The wide end of your hand loops around to your thumb; one of its corners rises to form an index for one beat. It slides back down, a perfect circle. Half of it curls tight, the rest forming a corner, along and up. The elbow moves it back, then forth, to repeat it. Left side exchanges with right, the widest spread you can make, for the final letter. The full stop on the identity of V.

"[... Call me that again.]"

**D-O-L-L-Y.**

Your fiercer signing ends with an unexpected bout of laughter hitting your ears. Not cruel, but far more not kind.

"[No. I am not Dolly,]" says the sheep in front of you. "[She merely carries me while I do my work. _My_ name is Vertil. ...But you know, don't you? You know you have to die.]"


	7. Interlude 2: All The Choirs In My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And you **knew** , didn't you? You knew he was alive." 
> 
> Written after Chapter 6 (technically 5) of 'Stitching', but set during Chapter 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strictly speaking, the chapter that follows this one isn't done yet. But I've already jumped ahead in chapter release terms for Chapter 16 of APAE, so why can't I do the same for this? Besides, I'm running behind in other matters too, like Welcome to Dangan Ronpa, so I need to hurry.
> 
> This interlude may perhaps explain a few things that before didn't make sense, as well as some things you didn't know _needed_ explaining. I hope it comes off as well to you guys as it did to me in the pre-planning - I have this habit of things not translating well to paper when they sounded great in my head. 
> 
> Die Anstalt © Martin Kittsteiner.

Something isn't right about this.

[Heh. Telling me the obvious again?]

I'm serious. I've been going over everything in my head. It's playing on a loop, like a broken CD or something.

[I know. I'm in your head too, I can hear it. I wasn't 'out' and I know it by heart.]

Then you'll know that a few things really don't add up. What he said about how he... that can't be true. Not with the sounds I heard in that room.

[Yeah, and all that blaming of the blonde chick. You'd think he was trying to...]

_[That's better. Now try to get some sleep. I think we all need some right now. Goodnight.]_

[...You'd think the same thing I'm starting to think right now?]

Probably.

[That he's really the one who-?]

Make that definitely. ...And I'm not gonna just let this thought eat at me. It's not what he would have wanted. I'm gonna do something about it.

[I can chip in if you want? Getting out and about again would be awes--]

No.

[C'mon. I'm not gonna take back over, if you're scared of that.]

**No** , Lyall. You really need to stay out of this one.

I have to keep this between me and Dr Wood.

*****

If this were a usual situation, she wouldn't have bothered knocking on the polished wooden door. She hadn't in the past, simply barging inside to inform those doctors about growling this and misery that. But to call what was running through her mind usual implied that her world hadn't inverted once and once again in the span of a month.  
Besides, the door was locked, making breaking and entering a pointless exercise anyway.

Dolly rapped a few times on the surface, knowing full well she wasn't going to get an answer straight away. It wasn't in the doctor's nature. True to form, she had to try again after nothing came back, much to the irritated noises of him inside.  
His response was curt when he opened it up to find her standing there, hushed but sharp as a needle's edge. "Dolly, I'm busy. If this is about what I think it is, I don't have the time to deal with it at present. Go to bed."  
Not to be deterred, she slipped through the gap, never looking away from him. No way of telling if she was making eye contact or not. But she couldn't turn her back. Not on him.

"What about 'I'm busy' do you not understand? Leave my office this instant."  
She didn't budge an inch, except to pull what was left of her sock up.  
"Fine. If you won't leave, at least don't disrupt me again," he said, re-shutting the door, then climbing back up on his small chair to do his work. "I am not compromising my rewritten thesis just to soothe wounds we've already discussed."

He fell into a quietness, and she watched him write the old-fashioned way for a time, ink gliding smoothly over the paper. This got boring after roughly two minutes, so she examined his office instead. It was much the same as what she remembered Kindermann's looking like; indeed, it had been converted from that when this guy got a leg up. The huge wooden bookcase on the wall to the left of them, for example, had been the human's, but the things inside, right down to that swarm of tacky figurines? All Wood's input. What use did he even have for so many glass ravens?

But neither this nor the pitter-patter of rain outside could distract her from her task, briefly or not. Even as she marked them off, she went over what she wanted to say, how to approach this can of worms. The record of memory started up again, spinning, ever turning, and she picked at it.  
She made sure, through prayers in her head, that her wolf wouldn't interfere. If ze came out at the wrong moment, took away control of her mind and her voice and the weapons up her sleeve, then the whole thing could come apart. She needed to do this on her own.  
She assumed.

Wood broke his own silence after what she guessed was a paragraph, though through talking to himself more than to her. "[Ugh, no, that doesn't work,]" he muttered, scratching something out. "[Can't be sure on that. No way of finding out without more fatalities. Okay, 'assumed'.]" Was he seriously reading aloud from his own writing-to-be? "['It can be assumed', then, 'that toys can last no longer than two to three minutes without oxygen, depending on size.' Yes, Sly was dead within three minutes. Has to mean--]"

"Not quite."

He stopped short; his pen dropped onto the table. No wonder: she hadn't said anything since finding the true beast inside her. (Of course, it helped that, despite everything, it had actually been **her** who said it.)  
"Not quite what?" he asked her without turning around.  
"Sly wasn't quite dead. Nae from not breathin', he wasn't."

"And you know this how? I was in the room when he passed on, therefore I am better equipped to--"  
She spat out what could have been a laugh at his pretentious twaddle. "Wood, do ya think we're stupid? Do ya think we cannae hear what's goin' on in that room if we're close enaw? 'at we couldn't figure out what really happened?" He made a kind of dismissive motion with his wing, but she didn't stop, even when her throat turned into tinfoil. "I was abit five steps away 'at day. I heard everythin'. I heard what ya said to Spieler. What _Sly_ said."  
"Dolly, I know that grief can affect the memory, but you must understand. Sly wasn't in much of a position to say anything."

She wasted no time in getting to her point. "Then who do ya reckon said "Wait, I'm okay"?"

The raven stiffened in his seat.

Immediately, she went at that chink in his armor, drawing on every lingering recollection, every errant word. "Dornt ya remember? You said yerself, you were there. Think. You saw Sly gettin' all wrapped aroond himself, took 'im away. You an' Spieler dragged 'at machine up from under the bed, the one 'at makes all the lights flicker."  
"I told Kroko once and I'll tell you again, it was merely external electri--"  
"Bullshit, Wood. I've felt it befair. I ken what it does. You strapped 'im to it and turned it on. He managed to get himself breathin' again, no idea how, but he did. He told ya he was okay, that couldnae have been anythin' else, and you made her shock 'im anyway.

"And you **knew** , didn't you? When the two of ya pressed 'at button. You knew he was alive. And you killed 'im."

Wood didn't reply to that, not right away. He got out of the chair again, maintaining a facade of steadiness, and looked at her at last, but that was it. Her foolish ego took that as a good thing, eyes blazing with triumph, body surging with it. She'd _got_ him. She'd got him and she thought she knew it.  
But the best and most clever of minds think over what they want to say before they say it. How do you think he slipped this by us as long as he did?

At last, he did speak: "I have to admit that this would be a damning chain of events, had you the proof it transpired."  
"What proof? I've got a half-working mind, dornt I? I heard it! Lilo was only a wee bit further oot, he probably heard it as well, though god knows what he's actually listenin' to half the time! Isnae that enough?"  
"No offense intended," he said with the air of a toy who almost did, "but no one in this institution has had the most consistent memory. I highly doubt you and Lilo are exempt from this."

"Oh no you dornt - you're nae fobbin' me aff with 'at excuse this time," she snapped. "I'm nae daft enough to forget somethin' I heard jist this week, am I? Jist because you 'conveniently' ignored how you pushed Spieler into killin' him then bitched at her for yer actions doesnae me--"  
"You will cease talking like that _right now_ or--"  
"-- **doesnae mean** the rest of us will. You murdered him and I'm nae leavin' until ya admit it!"

_[Atta girl!]_  
 _Not now, Lyall._

" _Nobody_ murdered him, Dolly." Even as he said it, his edges seemed frayed, his composure working as furiously as the ends of his wings, tight against themselves. "He asphyxiated. An accident, nothing more."  
"I didne believe 'at the first time ya said it. No one gets along fine for an hour and 'en 'suddenly' chokes himself to death. But I'm only sayin' all this noo 'cus the others dornt deserve to gie dragged into this, though they might have to if ya dornt spill soon," she warned, the one part of her spiel that was ad-libbed.

Once more, a layer of him peeled away. "Are - are you threatening me?"  
"Y'ken what, yeah. Yeah, I **am** threatening ya. At least I'm willing to admit it, Mr "Need to Figure Out What to Do With Ya"."  
"You are quoting that entirely out of con--!"  
"So either what ya call lies comes oot in front of everyone when I call out Spieler - 'cus believe me, she's nae gettin' outta this, she must've heard 'im too - or ya tell me the truth noo, the **full** truth, and this stays between us. Whit's it to be, Doctor?"

No response again, but the terseness of his posture spoke volumes. His clawed feet flexed as though he was to run, to escape his self-made situation, then changed back alongside his mind.

_[Heeee seriously has to think about it?]_ her wolf piped up.  
 _Lyall, for god's sake, go to sleep. This could get ugly, and you're nae helping my concentration._  
 _[All right, all right. Yelp if you need me.]_

This time, she didn't try to fill the gap once ze had muted zerself. She just let it settle, her ultimatum. It, and the past, and other invisible things far greater than even we could see, floated between them, above him, held aloft by a horse hair.

"This will change nothing, you know."  
When Wood, slightly subdued, broke the tension at last, it was her turn to be caught off guard. "What do ya mean?"  
"If I do tell the truth - Sly will still be dead. Satisfying your curiosity won't bring him back."  
"You're right. It won't," she said, point blank. "But dornt keep his death in vain by hushin' up either."

"...Fine. On your own head be it."  
After a repressed sigh, he spoke again. But his voice was distant. Almost as if, by remembering, he was actually back there.

"You know how it began. He tied himself in too tight a knot for Nadel alone to free him. She, Spieler and I were all pulled into helping. But for every attempt, the tangle got worse. To be more precise, it slipped closer to his throat each time. Then it stuck. He paled, he swelled. His eyes began to still, I remember that.

"We were contemplating more drastic measures by this point anyway. His suffocation, then alien to us, just made them seem more rational. Spieler was the one to suggest ECT first. Perhaps she was remembering the - " he looked skeptically at her breath-and-beast-filled stomach - " _stellar_ effect it had on you and yours."  
"Shucks."

"Initially, I tried to shoot her down. Even if our methods weren't working, there were other ways. But before I could, he convulsed, hard enough to break our grip, and - I don't know if it was the being startled, or the malignant inevitability, or her persistence. Whichever it was, I told her to fetch the machine, rushed to place him in it. We both let fear overrule us."

We noticed he'd wandered to the bookcase by this time, as though in a dream. He ran a wing over one of the spines, but made no attempt to pull it out.  
"...But we really didn't hear him. You **have** to understand that. By the time we realized he'd cried out at all, it was already coursing through..." His voice clipped. "And even afterwards, she tried twice to revive him with it. I'm sure you caught wind of that too. That was her act alone, and if he hadn't been dead already, he certai--"

"See, there ya go again, passing the buck. 'Sure I killed 'im, but I didn't _kill him_ kill 'im,' that's whit you're sayin'."  
He retreated back into himself, the vulnerability fading. "You wanted the truth. I told you it. What more do you want me to do? To keen? To beat at my breast because he's gone?"  
"Just to admit ya did it, Wood. That's all I'm askin'!"  
"And I have. I said I abetted what Spieler did. Without meaning to, but I did just the same. Hardly on the same level, is it?"

"Hardly on--?"  
In that instant, the room... Hm. The phrase 'seeing red' is interesting, isn't it? You'd think it better suited to synaesthesiacs than someone like Dolly, the plain seer, plain speaker. But if she alone were to relay it back, she would swear the place really did turn red.  
" _Hardly on the same level?!_ " she parrotted. "You were- ya let her go on with 'at -- Will ya listen to yerself?! What ya said before? You told me so many times I couldnae die when I wanted to, then ya killed 'im just to prove that I could've at any time! That I **should've** , two years ago! Remember what ya said then? ''at woman hurt ya, not the' - ugh - 'dog'! ...Well, it was Spieler who said 'at, but ya agreed with it, an' noo suddenly you're in the same spot as ''at woman' and ya have the **balls** to say it's nae on the same level?!"

"Sly would have died whether I'd intervened or not!" He stood firm, unaware that this would be his last act on Earth. "If we hadn't been reduced to this, he would have wrung his own neck regardless!"  
"And 'at makes both of ya speeding 'at up okay, does it?!" Trembling now, but not cold.  
"Both nothing. I gave the orders, but _she_ pressed the button. So why should it be _my_ cross to bear, Dolly?"

"'Cus your orders bloody **killed him!** "

And that was when we charged and shoved him into the bookcase.

 

...

For all his pithy proclamations of how much smarter he was than the average toy, Dr Wood was wrong on a lot of important things. He always swung that ball and chain differently to how Spieler did it. He overestimated how long he'd live to make his mark. And he knew nothing about what toys remember and what they pretend not to. If it's important enough to us - if it changes the course of our life forever - we keep that with us. We might displace, but we don't forget.

Every detail of that moment still rings true. It's as vivid now as it ever was. The speed of impact. How he had no time to get his bearings, let alone away from the shelf, before it teetered and fell. The glorious sickening shower of trinkets and books, masked by an opportune knelling of thunder outside. Even the title of the work that landed nearest to those cloven feet when, in a flinch, it was over. "Beyond the Pleasure Principle", by a certain Sigmund Freud.

Clear. Perfect. _Delicious_.

...

 

At the time, though, Dolly only tasted silence and fear, our anger washed completely clean. She held out, hoping against hope that Wood would find his way out from under that mess she herself had created.  
"W-Wood?" she called softly when no movement came. "Are you - okay under there?"  
A silly question, with no response.

"Wood, I'm sorry." She moved over to where it had tumbled, taking care to dodge the shards of broken statuettes, and tried to dig him out. "I didn't mean to push ya quite as hard as 'at. Jist wanted to knock ya down or somethin'." Straining against the case, heavier near the top, thoughts bleaching with panic. "Look, I'm still sayin' you're in the wrong here, but if ya dornt yell at me for this, I swear to Steiff I'll keep this quiet, I won't tell anyone else ya did it, I was gonna keep my mouth shut anyway, I was just tryin' to seem tough to get ya to spill, please jist be _all right_ for God's sake..."

It took at least three long, exhausting minutes of stress-boosted effort, if not more, but she did manage to move the shelf to the point where she could get to him, its end supported on that chair from before. He'd doubled up over himself, slumped with head between claws. His wings were limp against his body, and his chest, unmoving.  
Vaguely, something about breath-checking rang through, so she lifted him up slightly, practically shoved a hoof under his beak and chanted in rhythm of how it should go. "Wood, come on, talk to me. Dornt stop breathin' on me, ya need to breathe," she rambled. "In, out. In, out... in..."  
It made no difference.

She started compressing now, into, into, as best as she could. "S-stop it, Wood, dornt do this, in out in out in out!" A pointless cry. It was like telling the moon to disappear.  
No wonder, she wasn't doing it right. She couldn't get to his chest if he was flopped on top of it; she had to tip him back. At least she thought so, cursing herself for knowing the bare minimum of CPR but not the particulars, for not listening to Spieler in the time she taught it.

She shuffled around, held him underneath, made to lie him down gently, and his head detached.

To be more accurate, it lolled to his left, cracked at a wrong angle, too wide. Lightning struck again, and in the glimmer of the sudden flare, we noticed a flawless toothy grin of exposed stuffing, outlined by the bitter black hood.  
No breathing for him could bring him back from something like that.

At the sight, our throat locked up before we could scream, and we involuntarily stumbled in reverse out from under the case, flushed and shivering and refusing to believe it and feeling like we would throw up with no bile to speak of and shouting all through our head, _he's dead he's dead I killed him **he's dead I murdered him he's dead...**_

...and, exactly as it had done in the past, what was left of our fragmented psyche split still further.

Dolly fled. She couldn't have done this - she wouldn't - so she accidentally decided she didn't. Through no fault of her own, of course. It's how we cope. Her mind formed new memories to mask reality. As far as she's concerned, she didn't go to Wood's office at all that fateful night. She calls herself an innocent without irony.

In her place, I was actualized.

I continued where she left off. I walked back over to the fresh corpse. I checked his breathing, as before, to make sure that it had genuinely stopped. I pushed him flat to face the restrictive skies; I jerked the chair back to its old place when I was safely out, to crush him anew; I tore out the wires linking those security cameras; I tampered with that note to be on the safe side. I gave myself a new name, to hide my old sheepskin.

And all the while, I pondered just how easy it had been for me, for us, to kill.


	8. As If Death Itself Was Undone

People or toys, particularly with autism and danger snapping at their heels with cruel intent and barbed teeth, are not always well equipped to deal with feelings and what causes them, so says your therapist. You surmise this to be correct with what little distraction you have left. Emotions have been complicated and rough-shod to you for the most part, especially with everything that's happened. Happening.

Dolly - no, Vertil, the creature inhabiting Dolly's husk - pounces. Everything veers into sharp focus and you dodge, leaving her, or it, you're not sure what yet, to hit the wall, and it's caught off for only a second before it's upright and charging at you again.

But even you can pin down what's finally forced you to move, what's searing your system in the shared darkness between you and killer.

**Terror.**

"[There's no point in resisting it, Lilo.]" It speaks clearly, even as it tries to push you into a corner, even as you slip free from underneath. "[Everyone else has had to die. Wood. Dub, Kroko. Sly, in his own way. What made you think I'd leave you be when you haven't earned the right to be spared?]"  
Nothing, for right now you _aren't_ thinking that, instead focusing on the door back out. Open. You make haste towards the renewed safety of the lounge, of the Spieler and Nadel you're sorry for ever suspecting--

"[Going somewhere?]"  
The sheep appears over your head from nowhere, backflipping onto the wood and slamming it shut, click, into the wall - not without its clumsiness, but still forming a barricade, blocking escape. You stumble back, feeling the odds of survival dropping down your spine.  
"[Oh, don't look at me like that. Don't pretend _she_ would do anything to save you if you had found her again,]" says Vertil, following you anew. "[She can simper and whine and talk without doing, but what does she have to show for it?]" It slashes at your face with a blunt hoof; you don't sidestep quick enough, and it stings. "[Four dead toys, half shared with me. Five if you would just hold still.]"

You may have no choice, a part of you whispers. The room is small, the floor cramped by bed and desk and death-trap and murderer, and the running and reeling of tonight is taking its toll. But no, you can't succumb to that, scrambling back to where you started; you have to stay alive, to warn, to get out, just not to--

There's two pools of pressure on your back, throwing your feet and your self off balance, and you plummet to the floor. A vague memory flares of the day Sly died, of the fall before your faint. But there's no blackness to ease you this time, just a sharp pain on the chin, and the familiar unfamiliar sound of V in your eyes and ears again.

"[Thank you. Now I can finish what I started.]" There's a tight grip on your ankle, and the world moves, with only the voice to latch onto. You don't, can't, struggle. "[It would've been a pity if I'd gone to the trouble of setting this up and it went to waste now. Life is waste enough already. Having to do this at all proves that.]"  
It's a strange and terrible thing to hear. It's neither the amber of the afternoon's wolf, nor rubicund; nor, even, the result of mixing those. It's darker, duller, like dried blood on an unwashed butcher's blade.  
"[I wonder how things will play out when you're dead,]" it ponders as the dragging stops. "[Will Spieler believe that you hung yourself to spare Dolly? Or will it look like another pithy human did the trick after all? Will this body be let into the wild for my own safety? Will I have to sneak out, pretend they got me too?]"

You're yanked up by the scruff of your neck, forced to sit and stare at your enemy, back at the bottom of the paralysis cycle. Running isn't working, freezing isn't working; either just brings the jaws closer.  
"[Either way, this won't end with you. There's so many other toys in the world, scared and suffering, waiting for me to free them. You're just one more block in the wall, one more cog in the killing machine. Speaking of which...]"  
Then it wheels around and shoves you forward, clearing the way to the weapon you tried so hard to avoid.

It's a mostly rigged hangman's scaffold. The thin red line Dub used to skip over forms the noose. It's held up by your blocks, slapdashedly becoming the crossbeam. The stem is two tightly-coiled notebooks; you can vaguely make out the words "[STAY OFF]" on the front of the top one. Two more lie on the ground: the thicker one by Freud is the stand to be kicked away, while the thinner one holding the device down is... wait, is it by _Kindermann_ , or are you misreading that? And it's all tied together by string of a myriad of lengths and colours - orange, crimson, pale blue, even a hint of silver.

"[Look at it, Lilo. Look at what a simple etching on a corkboard can become.]"  
Even now, your body is contrary to itself and others. It turns away instead, towards the speaker. For the first time, you can see that your assailant's muzzle is as bare as the day you came.  
"[Look at what your friends helped to create, one way or another.]"  
Another contribution to what will kill you, what you are sure will kill you, what will be tight as a zip around your throat, through your tarnished mouth --

"[I said _look_ at it.]"

Zip.  
The word flashes, bright as a shriek in your mind's eaves. Your eyes move on their own, and you see its - no, hers - no, **zers**. And there's two of the forms speaking at once, from then and from now.

 _"[If you want me to listen, just pull on this--]"_  
"[It will be the last thing you ever see!!]"

Both of you lunge before you can think.  
You land first, dragging the pulley down as hard as you can. It lands next, shoving you back - "[Stay away from that!]" - but it's too late; all that does is give you a better viewpoint. There's already a rustling, a jolt, then a sudden mass of brown and familiar peculiar amber springing out, like the first expulsion of toothpaste from the tube.

"[Stay away from what? Who--]" Lyall starts in the midst of zer clambouring out; but the question's answered by zer finding you along with zer bearings. "[Oh, it's you, squirt. What'd'ya need me for so soon? Where's the fire?]"  
You're about to 'point out' that this is the latest in a long line of attempted murders, not a fire, when Vertil interjects: "[Keep out of it, Lyall. This isn't your business.]"  
"[I think I know what my business...]" Ze trails off once ze sees the sheep that held zer. A narrowing of eyes. "[You're not Doll.]"  
"[Hm?]"  
"[I _know_ my Doll. I've lived in her for a long time. And you're not Doll.]"  
"[Nobody said I was. Now go back inside; I have things to--]"

A whirl, a smack, and this time Vertil's the vulnerable one, the wolf pinning it down by the front legs in the blink of an eye. "[I dunno _who_ you are, bub, but I'm not going anywhere until Dolly asks me to,]" ze snarls. "[You let me talk to her right now.]"  
"[What--]"  
"[Did I stutter? Now means now!]"

So Vertil knows of Lyall, but not vice versa... And Dolly can yet be reached, the V persona pushed aside... How many identities can one toy contain? It's a conundrum you can't focus too heavily on; you're busy taking advantage of the ambush to sneak to the device. If ze can just stall for long enough, there may be no more killing tonight.

"[Stop squirming and let her back out! If I don't hear Doll in the next five seconds--]"  
"[All right, calm down, Lyall, I'm up.]"  
You do not stop your survey of knots at the new voice, but you do pause. The speaker's not new to you in the sense you've never heard her before, though with her not talking to anyone so oft lately, it might as well be. But the sound of Dolly, the **true** Dolly, is welcome all the same.

"[...Wait. What am I doing on the floor?]" she asks. "[Were you out on one of your walks, Lyall? You said you wouldn't do that anym--]"  
"[Not me. I only came out a minute ago. Doll, I think there's someone else.]"  
"[What?]"  
"[Besides us. You weren't - you - when I got called up. And you weren't me either. There was someone else at the wheel, someone we've not met before.]"

"[Another alter, you mean?]" Dolly's tone grows in alarm now. "[I've got more than one?!]"  
"[I know, it's--]"  
"[Did you get their name?]"  
"[I was more worried about getting you back, sorry.]"  
"[Who, who was out just now? ... Lilo?]" Her call of your name jerks you out of your task, and you have to set aside the partially-looped-rope to look at her, split between orange and pink, prone. "[Did you see what happened? Who was out just now?!]"

Before you can rethink what you're about to do (if there's anything to rethink about being honest), you throw your right hand up into those partial fingers, into the shape of the initial that's haunted all of you since Wood was found dead.

"[...V?]" she squeaks.  
"[You don't - ]" Lyall is just as shocked - "[you don't mean _that_ V, right? Not killing-everyone-and-leaving-those-creepy-notes-about-it V?]"

" _[Yes. **That** V.]_ "  
How quick the change, how jarring, as V itself returns, shown only by a crisper, calmer lilt and an unnameable shift in the eye.  
"[You! I told you to let her--]"  
" _[Don't snarl at me, wolf. She's still aware. I'm simply using her lungs to tell you the truth. Just like I used her hooves to purge a turtle, a crocodile, and soon a hippo from this Earth.]_ "

A temporary snap-back to Dolly just as rapidly. Now that both are side by side, so to speak, it's easier to tell the difference. "[Wait, I, I'm V?! I'm the one that did all that... that?!]"  
" _[Half-right. You carry Vertil, me, as you carry Lyall. You aren't me yourself. But you have killed before. Or have you forgotten the bird?]_ "  
Her second "[What?!]" echoes your own in your head.  
" _[Oh, of course. You don't remember returning to Wood's office to speak with him, do you? You don't remember slamming him into the bookcase, tearing his inadequate brain off his body. Pity; it shouldn't be something easily forgotten, Dolly.]_ "

Something is apparent on her face as she seemingly remembers, crying in her native tongue what you think means 'oh gott nein'. The same sheer fright that's eating you up? Anger? Guilt? ... Gah! You have no time to speculate. No one's looking at you now, and there is still work to be undone.

Despite this, though, you still hear the three facets of Dolly behind you, caught in their own dangers. You can't not, in your concern.

" _[Then again, you're so eager to forget other things. I don't suppose I can blame you.]_ "  
"[You can't blame her at all! She didn't, she couldn't have-]"  
" _[She could, and did. Tell your beasts the truth, Dolly.]_ "

"[I-]" she stammers - "[It was an accident. I never meant for it to happen, I didn't, how could I have known it would kill him?!]"  
" _[And now she tips her hand. 'How could I have known?' You sound just like the doctor, with your pathetic excuses.]_ " Scorn oozes from it. " _[But it might be fairer that way. He killed Sly as he didn't deserve, and he lied about doing it. You killed Wood, as he did, and you lie about meaning it. So much alike...]_ "

"[Oh, like you've got room to get high and mighty about it!]" This is Lyall. "[Fine, say she 'meant' to do it, but what about you? You meant to kill Dub and Kroko however you look at it; you've got more blood on you than Doll or Doc ever did. By your own logic, you deserve to die too!]"  
" _[We all do. But some deserve it to end the pain. Some deserve it for the pain they cause in life.]_ "  
"[How do you--?]"

" _[Dub was so sure he would die. Kroko wanted to die.]_ " Die, death, dead, you almost break your focus, you're so sick of those words! " _[I put them out of their misery. I prevented what they had from getting worse, making them end up like... Well, like us. But look at Sly: can you truly say he sought death, with his throat free of his tail? No. But Wood made the decision for him, and for that, he had to face the same.]_ "  
"[I-I didn't go in wanting to kill him!]"  
" _[I enrich others through their escape, and I admit as such. Wood dragged Sly there with ignorance and force, and took everyone's responsibility but his own. At least I'm honest. So can I really be blamed?]_ "

"[... Yeah. Yeah, you can be blamed. Murder's murder whatever the - That doesn't make **any sense**.]"  
" _[So you'll condemn Dolly to her fate? If I must pay the price for my actions, then she has to pay too, for the same reason as me. Or does bringing me to life cancel that out, wolf?]_ "

"[S-shut up.]"  
" _[Oh? Don't you want to die? Do you fight it, as the snake did?]_ "  
"[No - I - ]"  
" _[More lying, Dolly. Tsk tsk. If you don't want to leave this life, what were all those attempts in the last two years for? Fun?]_ "  
"[Shut up, you're not - ]"  
" _[Or is it that you want one to die, but the other to live on? You ought to know from Lyall that this is impossible. I'm just as much a part of you as ze has ever been, and you--]_ "  
"[Shut up!]"  
" _[And you are just as much a part of me!]_ "  
**"[Shut up!!]"**

The sheer volume, the tangle of everything, behind that final cry causes you to fumble your untying of the puzzle-made extension. Your hands slip, the string rebounds of its own accord, and the second of your blocks clatters to the ground, joining the first and the rope in the pile of extracted resources.

The silence bites for only a second.  
" _[Ah. A distraction,]_ " spits someone, making you turn again. " _[Clever, clever Lilo. But not clever enough.]_ "  
"[Doll - Ver--]"  
" _[Go back, wolf.]_ " Vertil is giving zer no time to reply before shoving zer inside the contours of its stomach, head-first. "[This won't be pretty.]" It's clearly its voice coming out now. But whose body is trembling, its or Dolly's? Whose tears does it blink back?

Whose rage fuels its leap for the kill?

With little time to spare or waste, you grab the nearest object to try and beat it back; it scratches at your limbs and eyes all that it can, and still you hold. It tries to rip off your ears, you misplace your footing, a crash, you're both on the ground, dodging, blowing, a inward-turning heavy blur of feet and fists. A second scrape-line on your face joins the first, aches more potently than it; there's a crack as your hand collides with... something, but you feel no pain there.  
You can't see at all beyond the white and screaming scarlet, tell what is floor or ceiling or bed. You only know that, should Vertil win, you will face a sunless afterlife, and it gives you the fuel you need to really fight back, slap, wrap, pull it taut and get your long-awaited vengean--

what?  
Your auxiliary senses, the texture and space, return. There's wood in your hands, not blocks, but smaller things. The ends of the skipping rope. The wire leads to a bared throat, to a sheep's wide eyes.  
You can neither move nor let go.

"[...Yes,]" V says unexpectedly, as though it's not as surprised as you are that you're doing this. "[This is what I meant. This is proof! This is _perfect!_ ]"  
Proof of what?  
"[Go ahead, Lilo. You can end it. Snap my neck, and stop me for the world's good, if you're so inclined. But know this: if I go, so does Dolly.]" It stares up at you in defiance. "[And so could Lyall. Three dead in one swoop, one more than me! And then you really will be the killer they'll call you. Can you become what I am,]" it rasps, "[what Dolly is, just to keep everyone safe? Can you take what I took, life for life?!]"

... You blink. Stare. What is it...? Is this a trap? Should you let your guard down? It doesn't seem to be resisting. If you wanted, it really would be a simple matter of...  
No! How could you even pretend to want? Killing it would go against everything you've stayed up and warned and learned for.  
...But so would letting it escape. Letting death come to pass, dictate all else. Again, isn't that just as bad as...?

Another shift of eyelids, and the scene changes. Instead of V, the invisible visible enemy, Dolly is pinned by you, struggling to breathe. Inside her, a wolf is blinded. Above her, you see a faint shimmer of green and tranquil light blue - Sly's electrocuted colours.  
And you realize.

You might have let death happen. But you are not a killer.  
Dolly's body might have murdered and manslaughtered. But **she** is not a killer.  
And neither of you will become something you're not.

You slip the rope free from the other toy's neck, break the connection between you, it, no, her, and the ground. Before another attack can land, you grab all four legs, bunch them together with one hand, and wrap it around them with the other, then completing the bondage.

She strains against what you've done to break loose, without success. She lies the back of her head on the linoleum ground. She says to no one, "[You're going to regret this.]"  
Which she?  
It doesn't matter much, for you know you won't.

Two seconds later, the door rattles, then thunders open, bringing new light to create an overabundance of it. Spieler is okay, and so is Nadel, though she's wearing one icepack and carrying another.  
Your pointing to the murderer, making the same sign as before, tells them all they need to know. Dolly - Vertil - is picked up and taken away without protest, leaving you alone in your bedroom, in the overwhelming sense of weariness that swamps you inside. You barely make it back into bed through the fog of this and the night's events and what you left unsaid before beginning a simple, emotionless sleep.

The only signs of dreaming are the bitter whispers in multiple shadows, and a repeated finger pattern you will later recognize as [MISTAKE].


End file.
